


From Ancient Grudge

by tullyblue12



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jaimsa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tullyblue12/pseuds/tullyblue12
Summary: “Stay here. I’ll come get you at sunset.”“Where are we going?”“I don’t know, but if we wish to make it anywhere alive, we must move fast.”Jaime and Sansa flee King’s Landing after Joffrey’s murder.





	1. Jaime I

Cersei wants her head on a spike to match her father’s. She sits in a cell now beneath the Red Keep, accused of a crime even he knows she did not commit. Cersei refuses to hear him, though. She refuses to hear anything he says lately; she still blames him for his own captivity. He thinks it’s ridiculous to blame him for such a thing, but her anger endures.

Her anger is the very reason Sansa rots below his feet. She’s a girl of fourteen charged with regicide, quite a feat for someone so young. He himself had been seventeen.

Jaime has barely interacted with Sansa since he arrived back in King’s Landing. Brienne damns him with her eyes each time she sees him, but he insists there’s nothing he can do to change Sansa’s fate. His vow was made to Catelyn Stark, and she lies dead in a river. Winterfell is in ruins. When Jaime first makes it back to King’s Landing, the Red Keep is Sansa’s safest stronghold.

Since Joffrey’s murder, this sentiment is no longer true. Cersei will not rest until she sees the girl die. Even when it was written in the stars for Sansa to wed Joffrey, Cersei didn’t like the girl. Sansa was Robert’s choice for a queen, not hers. Cersei would have chosen so many highborn ladies before her, so when her father fell into disgrace, there was no love lost.

He tells himself he shouldn’t care. He tells himself to let Sansa die, to wait for Cersei to forgive him the way she always does, to let whoever truly murdered Joffrey go on living. Maybe if it was Ned’s younger daughter Arya, he would be more eager to listen to this voice. If it was Sansa who’d escaped and Arya who had stayed, he might be able to let her die. But of course, it’s Sansa. Of course, it’s the daughter who is Catelyn’s mirror image. He remembers her wide eyes when Joffrey began choking at his own wedding, the same Tully blue as her mother. He remembers how her red hair fell loose from the pins when she was arrested. He remembers her pleas of innocence.

 _Why would she execute this murder and stay at the scene?_ he demands of his queen. _Why wouldn’t she flee as soon as the wine was poured?_ Cersei’s conviction does not waver, and his newfound enthusiasm for Sansa’s innocence seems to enrage her more, so he relents.

A week before Sansa’s trial, he decides to visit her in her cell. Her red hair sits unbrushed atop her head, dark from days of grease. Her blue eyes are bloodshot.

“Ser Jaime,” she says, and her voice is raspy. She must only get water every few days. “I confess I am surprised.”

“As am I, Lady Sansa. Are the guards feeding you?” he asks.

“I have been kept most comfortable for someone in my situation.”

“Oh, yes, you are the picture of luxury.” She flinches, and it is this sudden movement that allows him to see several bruises down her neck to her collarbone, injuries likely sustained during her arrest.

“What brings you here, ser?”

He sighs and takes another step towards her in her dingy hold. He looks down at her and is surprised by how she maintains eye contact. “The queen believes you are the mastermind of a conspiracy to kill the king, but I have my doubts.”

She perks up when he says this, intense eyes suddenly hopeful. “I am innocent, ser,” she declares, lacing each syllable with emotion. She is not in tears, as he expected to find her. Perhaps she’s run out of them, or perhaps she’s stronger than she looks. He believes her, but he needs more proof than this single declaration. Luckily, she is Ned Stark’s daughter, and honor is a language the Starks speak fluently.

“Swear it,” he implores her.

“I. Am. Innocent,” she repeats. “I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

He shakes his head. “The gods are easily forsaken,” he reminds her.

“I do not forsake the gods, but if this is not enough for you, I swear it by my lord father, strong and true. If the love I bore my father is not enough for you, I swear it on my brothers who did not deserve the fates they met. I swear it on my sister’s safety, more important to me now than my own. If this is not enough,” the young prisoner continues, “I swear it on my mother, who loved us so fiercely, and to whom you owe your freedom.”

She starts coughing after she swears it, a jarring, godsawful sound. He wonders if she’s spoken to anyone since her arrest. Tyrion has expressed interest in visiting the girl, but he barely escaped arrest himself. Tyrion can't associate himself with Sansa if he wants to stay alive. Jaime, on the other hand, has a little more leeway. He leaves her in her coughing fit because he has his answer now. He starts plotting the second he walks away, but he is still unsure as the hours pass.

Outside of his inner turmoil, his father insists on having him removed from the Kingsguard to take his place as heir to Casterly Rock. It’s been an argument since Robert Baratheon was crowned king and Tywin first thought there was a chance of having his son back. Jaime refuses every time it’s brought up, but this time is different. This time the king is Tywin’s younger grandson, and Tommen is much more obedient than Joffrey. Soon it is Tommen ordering the release of Jaime from his Kingsguard vows. The body of a king but the words of Tywin Lannister. Still, Jaime cannot refuse the king. His white cloak is taken from him.

He still wants to wait for Cersei. He thinks there’s a chance for her to see reason. He can show her even if he must force her to look, but he soon discovers there is no chance to have her alone. It is one day to Sansa’s trial when Jaime discovers that Cersei has been keeping the company of other men.

He’s never been more furious with her. It was one thing when she was married to Robert, when it was her duty to share a bed with him and produce heirs, but after his death? After his death is betrayal. He wants to wrap his fingers around her throat and squeeze until her eyes are as lifeless as her vicious son’s. He wants to force her to tell him how long she’s been entertaining other members of the Kingsguard. He wants to know if she sought pleasure with them as he struggled back to the capital for her. While the flesh was burned from the stump at the end of his arm, was another man buried between her thighs?

He marches back to Sansa’s cell then. Fuck Cersei. Fuck Tywin. Fuck Tommen. His blood is hot, and his armor’s choking him, and there’s only one thing he knows he must do. He takes the sword his father gave him and quickly ends the lives of the two guards outside Sansa’s cell. He manages to find the key on one of their bodies. Sansa looks terrified when he opens the door and even weaker than she did a few days before. He tosses her the red Lannister cloak he now dons in lieu of his white one. She is so shocked, she doesn’t even try to hold onto the cloak. She lets it fall to her feet, and he has to retrieve it from the ground and quickly use it as a hood to cover her head.

“Do wake up a little, my lady,” he says to her. “What I have in store for you is not for the faint of heart.”

She nods her head and stays silent, following him out of the cells through some tunnel she probably never imagined existed down here. There’s a whole world that’s been laid to rest beneath the Red Keep, echoes of a different time. The seashore is on the other side of the tunnel. She stops to look at the surf, but he leads her hastily to Flea Bottom. She fits in perfectly, poorly kept as she’s been in her cell, but he still looks like the Young Lion, and he only has so long to gather what he needs for their sudden escape.

“Stay here. I’ll come get you at sunset,” he instructs. He pulls away from her, but she grabs his arm and tugs him back.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“I don’t know, but if we wish to make it _anywhere_ alive, we must move fast. Do not move from this spot. Do you understand?”

She mutters an affirmation, and he takes off briskly. It’s a risk to return to the castle, but he knows the rotation schedule of the guards, and he’s confident no one knows Sansa is missing or her guards are slain.

Quickly he throws clothes into a leather bag and stuffs as much gold as he can into the pockets. He assumes he can buy whatever necessities won’t fit into the bag. A million things race through his head. They’ll need food, water, seclusion. Sansa needs a dress that isn’t torn. He needs his horse. He’d prefer to take two, but he’ll never be able to travel back to Flea Bottom with two horses in time. He needs to be back by sunset. The guards change then. They’ll know Sansa’s missing by sunset. It won’t be long after when they realize he’s gone too.

Brienne encounters him in the hall as he rushes out to the stables for his horse. He groans when he sees her. He doesn’t have time to speak with anyone.

“Pardon me,” he tells her. “I really can’t speak at the moment.” She looks like she wants to argue. He knows she will. She is smart, and she’s staring critically at the bag he carries.

“Where are you headed?” she inquires. “I can walk with you.”

“No,” he says. “We can talk later.” His tone is harsh, yet she keeps following him against his will. “Stop this,” he tries again.

“I do not believe your hurried state can mean anything good.”

“This time, it _is_ good, especially for you. Now leave me and pretend you never saw me.” She must understand then what he’s trying to say. Even if she does not fully know what he’s done, she must have an idea.

“I will leave you now,” she announces with a bow that would be comical to him if he was not so desperate to part with her.

His horse Honor is saddled for him, and then he is off to Flea Bottom. No one pays him or his horse any attention. Some men come through here on horses looking for whores. Other men, most often dressed in black, come through recruiting for the Night’s Watch. The streets are clamoring with people, but Sansa is still exactly where he left her, visibly shaken. He helps her mount the horse and rides as fast as he can out of the city. By the time the sun leaves the sky, they can’t see the city anymore. The road is dark at night, but he insists on having a good distance before the gold cloaks start their search. He decides to rest his horse in the morning. He is unable to sleep, and Sansa does not shut her eyes either.

“Is your gratitude too much to ask, my lady? If not for me, your head would soon be separated from your neck.”

“I half expect you to kill me yourself on orders from the queen,” she says, and it’s the first thing she’s said to him since he helped her onto the horse.

“If that was the case, I would have slit your throat in you cell. You’d fit in so well with your guards that way.”

Her jaw tightens. She is still afraid of him, he realizes. Maybe it’s because he’s a Lannister, or maybe because she does not know what he intends to do with her, but her fear is undeniable. Fear resides along with something else he cannot yet identify.

Their positions are the reverse of her cell a week ago. Jaime looks up at her this time. He sits in front of the tree his destrier is tied to, but Sansa remains standing. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and he wonders if she would maintain this semblance of ladyship if she could see how ragged she looked.

“We will come upon a river shortly. You will be able to bathe there, wash your dress, and we can collect some water for our journey. We will follow the river until we find a village where the people won’t ask questions.”

“People will ask questions wherever we go. What will we say?”

“We will say whatever satisfies them. We will _not_ draw attention to ourselves. We are no longer Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark. The least suspicious cover is to pose as man and wife.”

She refuses. She refuses firmly to his face, and he condemns her for her nonsense.

“We would not truly be husband and wife,” he assures her. “It is only a cover.”

“But that is it, ser. It would be most improper to lay with you under the guise of your wife while not recognized as such by the gods,” she explains to him.

This frustrates him greatly. “Our sleeping arrangements can be separate if your _piety_ —” his mouth forms the word bitterly— “demands it.”

She is quiet for a moment. There’s a slight smirk on his lips as he thinks he’s extinguished any moral outcry she’s experiencing. He learns Lady Sansa is strong yet. “If we are ever discovered, how could I live with myself if I sully my relatives with more shame? If Ned Stark’s daughter was labelled as a common whore?”

“Would his daughter’s marriage to a Lannister be any less of a disgrace?”

“It would be more honorable.”

Honor. Honor is really going to kill every last Stark, he thinks. Honor. Morality. Piety.

“I had no idea you felt this way about me, Lady Sansa. Marriage seems so sudden,” he quips. Her mother would have been furious with the remark. Her mother would take another rock to his head. She is not her mother. She only unclasps her hands.

“We are already bound by high treason,” she reminds him. “What is one more bond to each other?”

He wants to chastise her for continuing this futile conversation, but his anger and spitefulness quickly tug deep within him. These are the emotions that speak to him the loudest. _What better way to punish Cersei for her betrayal? Or his father for only seeing Jaime as a vessel to continue the Lannister name? What better way to defile Ned Stark in death?_ He imagines their furious faces. He imagines the face of Catelyn’s lady knight Brienne when the news breaks. He imagines the beautiful, noble women who all fancy they have a chance to be the Lady of Casterly Rock now that he has been dismissed from the Kingsguard and laughs to himself. Then a final thought comes to him in a tone born not of anger or spite, but something lighter. _What better way to honor his vow to Catelyn Stark?_

With no living relatives aside from a mad aunt, imprisoned uncle, and elusive granduncle, a husband is the only hope for the maiden standing in front of him.

“The next village we come to, we can ask after a septon,” he acquiesces. “The second we are wed, we must ride hard and fast for a new village. No septon will be able to keep our marriage a secret. We’ll have a few days before news makes it back to King’s Landing. Then the bounties will be raised, and the search increased.”

His companion is noticeably pleased that he has granted her request.

“Once we are wed as Jaime and Sansa, we cannot use those names again. What shall your new name be?” he asks. He’s already decided his but has not yet revealed it. He wants to hear hers first.

“Jeyne, I suppose,” she says with a shrug. “The name is common enough.”

“So is Lucas,” he agrees. “Jeyne and Lucas Howell,” he says aloud for the first time. “A common pair indeed.”

They come across a small village near Duskendale. Here, he buys them plain clothes and buries his golden hand in his leather bag. He buys her a bag, too, and some food to keep in hers. Once these needs are seen to, he asks whether a septon resides here permanently or if one travels through now and then.

“We’ve got one who lives here,” a merchant tells him. “No sept, but we’ve got a septon.” He relays the message to Sansa who has now changed into her new brown dress and styled her hair into two braids. She looks much better than she did when he escaped with her, though he can tell she does not admire her clothing. His clothes are just as plain, but his crimson cloak is delicately placed on his horse’s back. They ride to the septon’s residence and knock loudly on the door. The man answers with a smile and asks what he can do for his children.

“We ask to be wed,” Jaime says, and the man’s smile grows wider.

“A holy union before the gods! This will be my first wedding today.” He retreats into his home to retrieve his Seven-Pointed Star before returning outside to the couple. “Where would you like to be wed?”

“Here is as good as any,” Jaime tells him.

“Very good. Now who am I uniting in marriage this day?” he asks.

Sansa looks at him nervously, but Jaime nods his head. “Go on, you can say your name. I’ll go first. I’m Jaime Lannister.” The septon’s eyes widen humorously. This must embolden his betrothed.

“I’m Sansa Stark,” she says, and the septon nearly drops his Seven-Pointed Star.

“Jaime of House Lannister and Sansa of House Stark,” he repeats delicately.

Jaime quirks an eyebrow at the faithful priest. “May we continue now?” he asks cheekily.

The septon recovers from the shock. “Ah, yes. You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection.”

Jaime pulls the crimson cloak from his destrier, and the septon pales once again, as if he thought they were lying until the cloak of House Lannister appeared. Without his prosthetic, he has trouble draping it over her shoulders, but she fixes what he cannot and pulls it tightly around her shoulders.

“We stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. If you’ll take each other’s hands.”

Jaime and Sansa stand side by side. She holds out her right hand to him and he clasps it within his left. He offers their joined hands to the septon, who produces a ribbon from his robe and ties a knot tightly around them.

Jaime has been present at enough weddings to know there is usually an audience for these weddings, but the septon is the only witness for theirs. “Let it be known that Jaime of House Lannister and Sansa of House Stark are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder. In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity.”

The septon unravels their ribbon, and Jaime turns to face his bride. She opens her mouth slightly, likely preparing for their vows. He’s been present at enough weddings to say the words in his sleep.

“Look upon each other and say the words,” the man commands.

In unison, they recite their vows.

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger.”

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger.”

“I am hers and she is mine. From this day until the end of my days.”

“I am his and he is mine. From this day until the end of my days.”

He speaks again without her echo. “With this kiss, I pledge my love.”

She is shaking through the ceremony, even though she is the one who insisted on going through with the marriage. He gently brings his left hand to rest upon her cheek, drawing her eyes to his. Adorned in his crimson cloak, her youth is quite evident. Fourteen years old, twenty years his junior. At least he does not lust for her, so he does not feel entirely lecherous. He wonders if this will be her first kiss. This will be the first time he kisses a woman who is not Cersei. He should feel triumphant, but he does not. It’s a shame to waste a kiss. He presses his lips to Sansa’s for no more than a few seconds before removing them. She is the one who insisted on this, but it is his kiss that has sealed them together.

There is no audience to clap for their union, only a septon who will no doubt disappear to draft letters to Tywin Lannister immediately, so they best get going. They thank the man for wedding them and hurry off as suddenly as they arrived. They rest at nightfall, eating hard oats softened by water. He can tell his new wife is not pleased by the food, but she’s hungry, so she eats.

“The food will be better when we get settled, wife,” he tells her.

She does not react to his new pet name for her. “Have you decided where we will settle?”

“I have,” he says with a smile.

“Will you not tell me?”

“I will not. It’s more fun for me this way.”

“Please, ser.”

His expression hardens suddenly, and she inhales sharply. Good, he thinks. She must be afraid of how easily she can make a mistake. She must be always conscious of it if they are to avoid detection. “I’m no ser,” he reminds her.

“I know,” she whispers.

“Who am I?” he asks her fiercely.

“My husband, Lucas Howell.”

“Where are we from?”

“Just outside Rosby, near King’s Landing.”

“Why did we leave?”

He hasn’t discussed this answer with her yet. This one, he expects her to supply off the top of her head. “Kings are changing so fast. Can’t mean anything good for the smallfolk.”

“Wrong,” he says simply. “We’re not smallfolk. We have a surname. We may not be highborn, but smallfolk don’t have surnames.”

She sighs. “Then why did we leave, _Lucas_?”

“You tell me, Jeyne dear.”

“You used to make armor,” she claims after a minute. “But you lost your hand in the Battle of Blackwater, and now we need to find you new work.”

He approves of her story.

Before she goes to sleep that night, she says to him, “When it’s just the two of us, can we please call each other Jaime and Sansa? I don’t want to be Jeyne Howell forever.”

“It doesn’t matter if you want it. If we are Jaime and Sansa in private, it is easier to make a mistake in public,” he maintains.

“But when we are tucked away from the rest of the world—”

“I’ll strike you a compromise because I am tired and wish to rest,” he says to her, wondering if she will always win her way with him. He lies on the ground as her legal husband. He did not deny her request of marriage, and now he entertains breaking his own rules. “When we arrive at our destination, I will look for work, and I intend to make enough to provide us with a small keep. It will most likely be a small apartment, with a bed of uncomfortable straw in the corner. Only when we put ourselves to sleep for the night in that straw bed and speak in the softest whispers may we remember who we truly are.”

She agrees. “I know you wish to rest, but you have tested me, and it is time I test you.”

He stifles a groan.

“Who are we?” she asks, reinforcing the questions he’s already asked her.

His eyes are still closed when his tongue answers. “Lucas and Jeyne Howell.” His mind supplies another answer he does not say, the instinct he will have to quell in the months to come. His mind says, _I am Jaime Lannister, and you are my wife, Sansa Stark_.


	2. Sansa I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has mentions of rape

It is not just Winterfell in ruins, she thinks cynically. Her brother’s war with the Lannisters has apparently raged through the Riverlands, where he has taken her to settle. Maidenpool turns out to be the grand destination he has in mind. In her head, she recalls everything she can from her lessons about Maidenpool. _It is the seat of House Mooton_ , she remembers. _The walls are made of pink stone. The harbor is always busy with trade to King’s Landing._

When they arrive, and she sees the city before her eyes, she wonders if any of it is still true.

“ _This_ is Maidenpool?” she asks her husband.

“It is. A Lannister soldier came through the armory one day, told me the city had been sacked three times during the war.”

Her eyes widen. “Three times?” she repeats incredulously.

“When the soldier came through, he said the famous pool—you _do_ know the story of Florian and Jonquil, don’t you?”

Of course she does, she wants to say. She knows all the stories. She knows her legends and her histories; it’s only recent events that are unclear to her. No one gave her much news during the war, unless it could not be contained. For instance, the seizure of Winterfell by the Greyjoys and the deaths of her mother and brother at the Twins. The old stories used to fill her heart with glee. These new stories are not kind to her.

“Yes, I know the story.”

“Well that pool was filled to the brim with corpses.”

Her breath is shaky. _Why has he brought me here_ , she wonders. _Why has he decided to settle us in ruins?_ “Are the corpses still there?”

“I imagine they’ll be hidden by now, picked off enough by fish and birds to let the bones settle, but no, the bodies were never removed. Now you’ll find them beneath the surface.”

She wants to know who threw the bodies in the pool. She could ask if this _Lannister soldier_ knew when he came into the armory, but truly she fears the answer. The answer is either her brother’s army or her husband’s. She decides that’s a question for another day, maybe when she has retreated so much into Jeyne Howell that she won’t flinch if she hears her brother’s name. She does not know if this day will ever come.

“Why have you brought us here for work?” she asks instead.

“The war is over,” he tells her. “Cities sacked in war are cities rebuilt shortly after, and you need men to rebuild. Do not fear, wife. I’ll find work here.”

The appearance of the town is a bit deceiving. It bustles with life as they draw nearer, and the two of them are directed to a small inn where they can house themselves and their horse until her husband finds work.

“How long can we afford to stay here?” she asks him.

“Not long,” he says, and she does not know if his answer is sincere, or if he is trying to speak in solidarity with their cover. A recently maimed soldier from Rosby and his wife would not have had much time to save for their journey.

The innkeeper is a peculiar woman who unsettles her. The innkeeper’s eye wanders, and there are burns on her neck which remind her of the Hound. She and her husband follow the innkeeper up creaking, narrow steps to a small room. There is only one bed, low to the ground, along with a desk, a hearth, and one chamber pot. Her cheeks burn in shame. She is grateful for Jaime— _Lucas_ , she corrects internally—and his sacrifice, but she does not want to live like this. She does not want to hide in these plain clothes with these unsettling people, though no one will ever scare her more than Joffrey did. Joffrey is dead, she reminds herself. She never thought she was strong before, but Joffrey is dead while she goes on living. That must mean something. It’s a miracle she thanks her mother for. Her mother sent her a knight.

She does not speak much in this place. Any time she does, she can see her husband out of the corner of her eye, and each time his face is critical. She cannot help what troubles him. She does not know how _not_ to be a lady. It’s been so much a part of her. She reflexively keeps her hands clasped at her waist, and she walks with her back perfectly straight. She still waits for a servant to come brush her hair most mornings. These mistakes are simple enough, but when she speaks, her noble birth is more evident. She wishes she could mask herself as easily as Jaime does. For all she tries to think of him as Lucas, it is another facet of her new life she cannot adjust to. He will always be Jaime Lannister to her.

They stay in the inn for a week before their situation changes. Jaime leaves her in the room each morning to look for work and returns each night by the time of the evening meal. When he’s gone during the day, she takes the time to sleep. At night, while he rests in the bed beside her, she cannot sleep. She usually ends up pacing around the room and sitting at the desk, returning to bed when the sun begins to rise. They eat their evening meals together. She asks him about his search, and his search is fruitless until he hears some man down by the harbor is looking for fisherfolk further up along the bay. People are returning to Maidenpool in droves now that Randyll Tarly is overseeing reparations. These people need to eat, and the Bay of Crabs supplies them.

She glances at her husband’s missing hand. “Will you be able to fish?” she asks him.

“I’ll be fine.”

Still, she worries. She worries Jaime will not be able to learn. She worries the bay will freeze when winter finally comes and the two of them will starve. She worries someone will recognize her knight and send them back to Queen Cersei to meet terrible deaths. She never stops worrying.

And then Jaime proves himself a good worker. He has always been charming, and he charms the men he works with. He charms the man who owns the fishing boat. Jaime is strong, so even though he only has one hand, he can pull in the fishing nets relatively well. He returns to her with rope burns on his arms and fingers, and she wishes she knew herbs to heal them. Despite her fear, she decides to go out into town while Jaime works and talk with the women. Maybe there is work for her too. 

Shops are asking for seamstresses. Her hands are delicate, and her septa always said her embroidery was perfect. Jaime doesn’t think it’s a good idea. He does not trust her yet, but he does not forbid her. She leaves early in the morning when he does. Her back aches from hunching over her work, and her hands never stop stinging, but each day, Jaime is more pleased with her. Each day he is gentler. Maybe he’s relieved that he is no longer the only one who suffers for their survival.

Their hard work is rewarded in time. It’s not long before the couple earns enough to keep an apartment near the bay. They cannot keep Jaime’s horse anymore. They have no land, and stables are expensive. On a day of seas so rough the fisherfolk won’t sail, Jaime takes Honor by the reins and marches him to the city’s market. He sells the creature for enough to keep the two of them fed for a while. His horse is gone, golden hand shed, red cloak torn. The only thing he keeps is his sword. He keeps it hidden away in the closet of their apartment, the Valyrian Steel weapon he used to slay her guards. The sword is the only possession they keep of their past lives. In place of it, he carries an inexpensive dagger at his waist, concealed beneath his tunic.

“I’m sorry about your horse,” she whispers to him one night when they have both laid in their bed to sleep. She isn’t so nervous about sleeping beside him anymore. The bed is small, but they keep to their sides and barely touch. He never tries to take advantage of her. He never asks for what is rightfully his as her husband.

Her fifteenth nameday has passed now, and she hasn’t heard her name in so long. She has not uttered his either, but he made her a promise to when they were settled. They have their own bed now in their own apartment. She’s ready to speak as Sansa again.

“The horse is no matter to me. It’s just a creature,” he replies.

She turns in the bed to face him. “People can bond with creatures. I cried hysterically when my direwolf was killed. Do you remember?”

He must remember his promise to her because the overt reference to her past does not precede a scolding. “Vaguely.”

“You have my gratitude,” she says to him sincerely. “If not for me, you would still have your horse, and your gold, and your life in King’s Landing.”

He shakes his head. “My lady, if not for you, I’d be skin in the teeth of your brother’s direwolf. He bested me in battle and only kept me alive to reunite his family and have an independent kingdom.”

For a reason she does not know, she reaches forward and takes Jaime’s right arm in her hand. Her fingers graze the stump at the end of it where she can clearly see the evidence of his mutilation. He almost draws his arm from her, but she does not let him. She is not finished looking.

“Does it disgust you?” he asks bitterly.

“Only that it caused you great pain.”

She feels his pulse quicken. “It was more excruciating than you can imagine. If anything like it happens to me again, I hope I die.”

She does not say anything in response, but she does hope nothing like it happens to him again. She does not want to lose her guardian. She is lost without him.

“I’ve wanted to know for a while, but I fear the answer. Did my brother have it done to you?” She does not know what Robb became after her father’s death. She only knew the boy at Winterfell, not the King in the North. Perhaps the King in the North was not above torture.

“No, the Young Wolf was not so cruel. This was the work of someone I encountered after I was freed.”

She has not let go of his arm yet. She still holds it carefully. He says to her, “My sister thought it was disgusting.”

Sansa scoffs. “And she thought Joffrey was splendid. I would not trust her opinions, my lord.”

He chuckles as she lets him pull away from her. He lays on his side to sleep. “I suppose not.”  

They speak as softly as they can manage at night when they speak to each other as Jaime and Sansa. They share walls with their neighbors, and she thinks it is so strange to live this close to other people. All sorts of people live here in these apartments by the bay. One of their neighbors is a whore who uses her apartment to entertain the fisherfolk. They can hear her working some nights, and it sickens Sansa.

“What a waste of copper,” Jaime remarks when they can hear. Sansa does not comment on it. Some days she and the woman cross the same path when Sansa leaves for work, but Sansa pointedly ignores her. She hates hearing the neighbors.

One night while she and Jaime lay in bed, exhausted from the day’s work, they hear yelling a couple apartments over. It is a man who yells at his wife. _Spread ‘em, you fucking cunt_ , he shouts, and the woman screams out in pain. Sansa winces. They can hear the woman begging for him to stop. She is pleading that if he is just a little gentler, if he just gives her a minute, she can be good for him. The man does not want to wait even a second. Sansa remembers the men from the bread riot. She remembers her fear when they held her down and split her knees apart.

Jaime moves beside her, throwing the blanket off him and quickly dressing.

“What are you doing?” she asks him.

“I need sleep. Don’t you?” He tosses her a grin before walking out the door. The woman is still yelling in pain, but suddenly she hears Jaime’s knocks on the door.

“Who the fuck is it?” the man yells.

“Lucas Howell, that’s who the fuck it is. Now open this fucking door.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll break it down,” Jaime says. “Don’t think for a second I won’t.”

“I’ll bash your head in if you try.”

Sansa worries for her husband. She hopes he knows what he’s doing. She hears him shout through the door, “Oh, I’d like to see what happens to you when you try to fight me.”

He’s wounded the awful man’s pride. The door creaks open, and she can hear the two men brawling from her bed. She cannot tell which grunts belong to Jaime and which belong to the brute. Quickly, she removes herself from the bed and leaves the room to watch. She worries she will find Jaime badly injured, but she’s sure listening from the bed, not knowing the outcome, is worse than watching directly. She arrives in time to witness Jaime take the man by his neck and fling his head into the brick wall. She sees the intensity of the punches Jaime delivers with his left hand. He keeps punching until the man does not grunt at all.

Then, the man’s wife opens the door of the apartment and absorbs the scene before her. Her husband lies unconscious on the ground. He does not seem so mighty when he’s a pool of blood on the floor. The wife’s eye is already swollen, and her nose bleeds. She walks like it is painful, but her eyes are so hopeful as she looks at her husband. Then the wife turns to Jaime, and all Sansa perceives in her countenance is pure appreciation. Jaime must see it, too.

“Scream if he hurts you again. The next time I’ll run him through,” Jaime says.

There are tears in the woman’s eyes as she nods enthusiastically. “Thank you so much.”

Neighbors from a few of the other apartments gather around to see the end of the epic. Jaime addresses them. “If that is all,” he says, “I bid you goodnight.” He locks eyes with her then. “Come, wife.”

She follows him back into their apartment. Her golden knight has not walked away unscathed. Blood drips down his face from a cut above his brow. His lip is already swelling, and his knuckles will be bruised for days.

“Let me help you,” Sansa says. She asks him to sit on their bed while she soaks a rag in cool water. She washes the blood from his cuts and holds the rag to his lip to help the swelling.

“Why, thank you,” he says casually. She smiles. “Do you smile for me?”

“I am impressed with your actions tonight.”

“I do not like when my sleep is disturbed,” he says dismissively.

“If they were quieter, would you have let it go on?”

“As long as I can hear it, I will not let it go on.” His jaw tightens. “I have let it go on before. Now I do not have to.”

Her eyes snap up from his knuckles. She wants to ask him more. She wants to know what past experiences weigh on his mind. His voice is heavy with burdens, but he does not let her ask her questions.

“I think this will do for tonight, Jeyne.” He stands up from his seat and undresses for bed for the second time that night. She follows him, and the subject does not resurface. She sees the abhorrent man the next day, limping down the steps of the establishment. His face is nearly unrecognizable. They do not hear him hurt his wife again, not even when his wounds eventually heal. She is grateful for it.  

The nights grow colder in the following weeks. The two of them keep a fire in their hearth, but even this does not keep out the chill that seeps into their apartment. She longs for warmer clothes and furs to sleep under, but they do not have the funds. She wonders if they ever truly ran out of the gold Jaime brought with him when they fled. She thinks there _must_ be some left over. They could not have used it all. Even without the changing season, she needs new clothes. She’s growing, and her plain clothes are not growing with her. Men stare at her longer when she walks to work alone. They stare at her bust and hips. They say offensive words to her.

She does not broach the subject with Jaime until they can see their breath one night. The next day he buys her a new dress and a fur shawl for the chill, along with a few warmer items for his own wardrobe, but it does not stop her from catching a cough. They move the bed closer to the fire, no longer worried about the straw going up in flames from the embers. They just want to be warm. She lets him sleep on the side closest to the fire. He offers it to her, but she refuses.

“I’ll be all right,” she assures him. “I have Stark blood. We are built for the cold.”

She may have the Stark blood, but she’s still coughing, and Jaime is not.

Her cough is the worst at night, and it keeps both her and her husband awake. She thinks he will be frustrated with her, but instead, he brings her water and pats her back as the coughing fits overwhelm her. She coughs into cloths, and each time she pulls the cloths away from her mouth, she expects to find drops of blood. There is no blood yet. _There will be_ , she thinks. Her chest aches terribly, and her throat is raw.

“I wish I could take you to a maester,” Jaime murmers to her.

She nods to agree with him. It hurts too much to speak. She wishes she could sleep. The next morning her head is pounding, and she wants to cry out in pain when she stands up. Jaime takes her by the wrist and helps her back into bed. He rests his hand on her forehead.

“Did you know your body’s sweltering?” he asks. “You must have gotten a fever in the middle of the night. You can’t very well work like this. You would never make it to your shop on foot.”

“I have to,” she weakly protests, though she does not fool him. Her eyes are already closed again, and she’s shivering under the blankets.

“No, _I_ have to,” he corrects. “You will rest until I return.”

He leaves shortly after. She’s never felt so weak in her life. Acrimoniously, she thinks that Jaime will not have a wife to return to by the end of the day. She does not want to survive King’s Landing only to be taken by a common fever, but so is the way of things apparently. If her throat did not bother her so much, she’d laugh bitterly.

She starts coughing up blood while Jaime is fishing. When he returns, she can see the panic in his eyes, though he speaks calmly. She must be an alarming sight indeed. She cannot always cough into the cloth, so drops of blood spread across the blanket, the bed itself—she even sees some splattered on the wall.

“Have you eaten anything at all?” he asks her.

She shakes her head. He leaves without another word and returns with some bread. She does not want to eat it. She does not want anything, not even the water he has left beside their bed, but he will not stop pestering her to eat. She takes a bite, and it feels so foreign to her. Swallowing the food hurts her throat, but she does it to end his griping. Minutes later, she reaches over the side of the bed and begins heaving up every substance in her stomach. Jaime reacts quickly. He grabs the chamber pot to catch the rest of the contents and brushes her hair away from her mouth. The stench of her sickness is overwhelming. Soon, there is nothing left in her but bile, and that does not keep her body from painfully expelling the yellow liquid as well. Tears well in her eyes. The pressure from leaning over the bed causes her nose to bleed. The blood flows down her face into the chamber pot with her sickness, and she truly begins to cry.

Jaime hands her fresh cloth to wipe her nose and mouth. He holds the cup of water to her lips, so she may take a sip and wash the taste from her mouth. When she lays her head back on her pillow, she cries once again. “I have never felt less like a lady.”

He brushes the sweat from her brow reassuringly. His eyes are soft when he whispers, “I will never be able to look at you and see anyone but a proper lady.”

She wants to laugh. She knows he is lying. Surely, she is far from the look of a lady now. Still, his platitudes calm her.

“Now, I talked to some people about this today. Half of them said to smother you in blankets and sweat the fever out of you. The other half said to bathe you in cool water and expel the excess heat. You see how I am a little confused.”

She is so cold already. “Blankets,” she says. She wants to stop shivering. “Can we get more?”

The answer is written on his face immediately after the words leave her lips. He voice is unsure in his reply. “If we buy anymore, I do not think we will be able to afford to keep living here,” he tells her.

She understands. She nods her head and grips the two blankets she does have a little tighter. He clenches his jaw. “There has to be some medicine I can get you.” An idea must come to him. “I will be back soon.” Before he leaves, he changes from the warmer tunic he’s worn since the weather worsened. He wears the first one he bought instead, the lighter, brown fabric he wore when they were wed. He hands her the warmer one and helps the new layer over her head. Then he wraps her in the blankets once again. He is gone before she can thank him.

She suddenly hears him pounding on the neighbors’ doors. _Please, my wife is ill. Is there anyone who can help her? Is there anywhere I can take her?_ To another, _she has a terrible fever and a cough to go with it. She cannot stop shivering no matter what I do._ He even goes to the whore she avoids. _There must be some remedy for this._

She hears the desperation in his voice. She really must be dying, she thinks. She’s always thought that she was the one holding Jaime back, but she realizes then that he will be just as lost without her as she would be without him. If she dies, he will be just as lonely. A kingslayer once pardoned and now a kingslayer’s accomplice—even the queen’s fondness for her brother will not save him if he’s discovered. He must fear loneliness.

“There’s a woods witch who can see her,” she hears the whore reply. “She can cure anything. I swear it.”

“Where do I find this woods witch?” her husband asks.

The whore realizes she has an advantage over him. “I’ll take you for three coppers,” she offers. “For four, I’ll give you something extra. Your wife is indisposed by the sound of it. These walls are thin. I can hear her coughing through the night.”

Jaime hesitates. Sansa wonders if he is considering her offer, ready to heave again at the thought. She remembers how Tyrion Lannister loved his whores. Perhaps it runs in the family.

“Three coppers,” Jaime says firmly. “And you’ll take me to her now.”

“It is late,” the whore protests.

“I don’t care. I paid you. Now lead the way.”

Sansa does not know how much time passes. She is in and out of consciousness during his absence, but she is awake when he returns later with a woman dressed in black from head to heel. Her hair is white, like she is old, but when Sansa sees her face, she does not look much older than Jaime. Feathers are weaved into sections of the woman’s deceiving locks. Several vials hang by a string around the woman’s neck. The witch’s gray eyes scan her appraisingly. In contrast, Jaime’s emerald eyes are critical. He is wary of her.

“This is your wife?” the woman asks.

“Yes,” Jaime says.

“What is her name?”

“Jeyne.”

The woman breaks her scrutiny of Sansa and turns sharply to Jaime. Her eyes harden when they meet his, and Sansa is suddenly even colder. “Why do you lie to me?” she challenges.

Jaime does not hesitate. “I do not lie.”

“ _What_ is her name?” she repeats, louder this time.

“Jeyne Howell.”

Sansa wonders how the woman knows. Perhaps it is a mistake to bring a woods witch here, a practitioner of magic. Sansa’s fears are confirmed when the witch reveals a knife hidden in her black gown and quickly pricks a finger of her limp right hand. Jaime produces his own dagger and grabs her by the arm to pull her away from Sansa.

“Do you want to save her? I cannot save her if I do not know her name.”

“I told you her name,” he says venomously. “And if all you have to offer is some form of demented sorcery, it is time for you to leave.”

“This mistake would be a grave one. It will not be long now before your wife’s death. This illness will not leave her without my remedies. If you send me away, she will either burn to death from the fever, or choke to death on her own blood. For her sake, I hope the fever takes her first. Her death will be less painful then.”

Jaime releases the witch’s arm but tells her to stay away from the bed until he says otherwise. Jaime approaches her, tangled in the blankets, blood dried around her mouth and dripping carelessly from her pricked finger. He crouches beside the bed and pushes a strand of hair from her face, dampened by sweat.

“What shall I do?” he asks her.

Through the sharp pain, she utters a confession. “I don’t want to die.”

He squeezes her hand and sighs. “All right then. Her name is Sansa.”

The witch smiles. “Was that so hard?” she drawls as she approaches Sansa’s sickbed. She takes her hand and sucks the blood from her injured finger. Her eyes widen suddenly; a harsh gasp escapes her lips. “This is Sansa _Stark_ ,” she names accusingly. “I can taste the wolf’s blood running through her veins. And if this is Sansa Stark, you are the Kingslayer. You are both wanted by the Crown.”

“Whoever we are does not matter. Save her.”

“The blood of the wolf contains magic.” She pulls a vial from the string around her neck. “Quickly, child, drink this. It will enhance the magic in your blood and expel the illness from your body.”

The liquid has a putrid smell, and the taste is even more wicked upon her tongue. She almost spits it out, but she forces it down her throat. She gags afterwards, but the liquid thankfully stays down. Then the woman is running her hands over her body. She chants, _Lua se zokla vok. Lua se zokla vok._

Sansa wants to look at Jaime, but her body is paralyzed. She has never felt like this before. She is aware that her chest feels lighter, and the burning sensation in her head has lessened. The chanting is louder now.

_Lua se zokla vok. Lua se zokla vok._

The witch’s lips graze her ear, and she whispers, “Sleep now, child.”

She knows nothing after this. She knows not how long she sleeps. She knows not how the witch commanded her to sleep. When she wakes, she wonders if it was all some twisted dream, but she can feel the tiny ache where the witch pricked her finger. Then she realizes her shivers are gone. There is no sweat upon her body. She has woken to find her chest unburdened and her head free of pain. She is saved, she thinks. She sits up in the bed to find Jaime standing in the corner and the body of the woods witch by his feet.

Her breath leaves her. The relief she feels upon waking disappears. “You killed her.”

He rakes his hand through his hair. He looks exhausted. “She knew who we were. We must still leave to be safe.”

“She saved me.” She does not speak angrily. She is too shocked to be angry.

“And now she can never have the chance to hurt you.” He approaches the bed and touches his hand to her cheek. He smiles. “Your fever’s gone.”

When he pulls his hand away, she notices a fresh cut on the palm of his hand. She grazes it softly with her finger, the same finger the witch pricked. “How did you get this?”

He looks at the cut and shrugs. “Must be from fishing.”

She does not believe him, but she does not press him. She stares once again at the dead woman on their floor. Jaime catches her line of sight and sits on the bed beside her legs. “I did not do it to be cruel,” he tells her. The tone he takes with her reminds her of her father, specifically when he would counsel her.

“I know,” she whispers.

“Everything I have done has been to keep us safe.”

“I know.”

He takes her hand in his. She can feel where his hand’s been cut. “I will never hesitate to do what needs to be done if it keeps us safe.”

Sansa nods in understanding. They are bound to each other. Her safety is his. His strength is hers. Her dangers are his. His weaknesses are hers. _From this day until the end of my days_ , the vow echoes in her head. She looks one last time at the body. The woman’s chest has been stabbed, repeatedly if the blood is any indication. She remembers the way the throats of her guards were slit. The scene of her body is very different from the scene of her guards’ bodies. The vials from her broken necklace are strewn across the floor. The woman’s blade lays near her. It could not save her. Not many people are a match for Jaime Lannister. Only her brother has defeated him.

She used to fantasize that Robb would come bursting into the Red Keep and slay everyone he encountered on his way to her. He would slay everyone who had put her in danger. Before Robb, when she thought she had Joffrey’s heart, she imagined he would do the same. She imagined Joffrey would do anything for his future queen, no matter the cost. As long as she stood at his side, she thought she would be invincible. Joffrey was a gross misjudgment, and Robb never had the chance, but Jaime is different.

Jaime saved her in King’s Landing when she stood accused of his nephew’s murder. In her illness, Jaime brought the witch to save her, and slayed the woman when he thought she posed a danger. She realizes there is someone who will finally protect her. There is someone who will slay anyone who harms her. She shivers with the assurance that she has some form of devotion from Jaime Lannister. There is power in his promise.

“If anyone hurts me, and I give you the name, what will you do?” Her eyes lock on his. She is testing him.

He leans in closer to her. Even sleeping beside each other these past months, their faces have not been this close since their wedding kiss.

“Any mark upon you will be repaid ten times over,” he growls passionately.

Her breath shudders. She leans forward, through the thrumming of her blood, and presses a grateful kiss to his cheek. Her lips hover over the soft skin. “Thank you, Jaime,” she says, long past the days of referring to him by title only.

He brings their joined hands to his lips and leaves a searing kiss of his own to her knuckles. She has power over him, and he has confessed to it. Still, she knows he has a power over her, too. The way he smirks when he brings their hands back to her side, she is sure he is acutely aware of his power. A smile spans across her lips. Sansa does not mind if he knows. In fact, she quite prefers it this way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you like this newest addition and how their relationship is changing. Please let me know what you think. Also, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.


	3. Tyrion I

He’s in his solar when guards suddenly inform him that he won’t be allowed to leave. He hadn’t exactly been planning to, but still the notion that he can’t even he wished it is alarming. He thinks the sudden detention is specific to him and his solar. Cersei must have finally found a way to arrest him for Joffrey’s murder.

Then he finds out this treatment is for _everyone_. No one in the Red Keep may leave their rooms. His sister, who he discovers issued the order, is the only exception. She storms past the guards with their father beside her, decked in the usual Lannister colors. His father closes the door behind them. Neither one of his kin greet him, so the pleasure falls to him.

“Father, sister. Perhaps you can explain why I am held here against my will.”

It doesn’t take a clever mind to notice Cersei fuming. His father is also noticeably perturbed. Tywin invites his children to sit down, immediately asserting control over Tyrion’s solar. Tyrion decides to sit despite this, but Cersei adamantly refuses. She paces around the room instead.

“You helped them!” she shouts murderously. Her hair is wild this evening, a true lion’s mane around her face. Her eyes are red as she lunges towards him.

“Enough!” Tywin intervenes. “The situation is bad enough without you two at each other’s throats.”

Though Tyrion knows the words will make no difference to Cersei, as he’s said them countless times already, he still declares, “I had nothing to do with Joffrey’s death.”

“This is not about Joffrey’s death,” his father informs him. “Sansa Stark has escaped.”

Tyrion’s eyes widen. He pictures Sansa, the little girl scared out of her wits anytime she is spoken to. He does not think young Sansa is capable of murder, let alone skirting by Sansa’s rage. He was so sure she would die in the morning.

“Tell him the rest,” Cersei urges savagely. “Tell him why our brother is not with us this evening.”

Tyrion has grown so accustomed to Jaime’s absence that his return from captivity felt foreign. In truth, he did not note Jaime’s nonappearance until Cersei mentioned it. Jaime’s never had much of a mind for politics anyways. He’s a decorated commander, exceptional in times of war, but courtly life is a different matter entirely. Cersei’s urgency does worry him, though. She does not normally regard their brother unkindly.

“It seems Jaime has disappeared as well. Sansa’s guards were found dead outside her cell. Unless Sansa was able to slaughter them behind a locked door, we believe Jaime slit their throats, and the two of them escaped together.”

Cersei pours herself some of his wine. She takes a long gulp of it. “We should have killed that little bitch the day Jaime escaped.”

“We could not very easily kill an heir to Winterfell,” their father says. “I do regret that we did not make better use of her. We should have kept her at Casterly Rock instead.”

“She was no use to us as a hostage when Jaime escaped.”

“Did he escape?” Tyrion asks. “I seem to remember that he was freed. Freed by Catelyn Stark in exchange for her daughters.”

“At least Lady Stark died before we had to discuss the trade with her.”

“Yes, how convenient,” Tyrion remarks sarcastically. His companions do not appreciate it.

“We’ve closed the city the best we can, but it’s very likely they have already traveled away from King’s Landing,” his father continues.

“Yes, very likely.”

“They plotted together,” Cersei mutters. “Our brother conspired to kill his own nephew.”

“Jaime did no such thing.”

“Then why would he flee with that red-haired whore?” she demands.

Tywin only purses his lips and straightens his back in his chair. Tyrion considers offering him some wine, too, but his father would only condemn him for his habits.

“Jaime believed Sansa was innocent,” Tyrion remembers. “Perhaps he only means to—”

“Means to _what_?” his sister spits out. “Free her and then return to King’s Landing? In his actions, he marks himself guilty of high treason.”

“That he does. Has everyone else in the Red Keep been accounted for?”

“The only one missing is Jaime,” Tywin confirms.

Tyrion presses his fingers into his temples and takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes. His father and sister join him in shock. The whole situation is most puzzling.

“Like you said, Catelyn Stark freed him herself. They planned it all. He likely pledged himself to their cause.”

Cersei’s mad theory does not appeal to Tyrion. Still, he cannot produce a sensible one of his own. Perhaps there is no sense here. He thought there would only be relief for the realm when Joffrey choked on his poisoned wine, but he was wrong. It’s still chaos, and Tyrion is stunned. Sansa Stark lives, which is surprising on its own, but even more by his brother’s hand. His brother who lived and breathed for their sister.

Tyrion takes a glance at his father and thinks he’s never seen the man look so defeated. Tywin always gets what he wants, and he finally had his golden heir back. For a moment, everything was the way he wanted. Tywin Lannister, who always thinks steps ahead of everybody else. Tyrion knows, though, there was no seeing _this_ is advance.

Traffic in the city resumes the next morning with no way of knowing for sure who filters in and out of King’s Landing. Cersei always keeps Tommen heavily guarded, but even she grows more suspicious of the guards as the days pass. As soon as the mourning period ends for Joffrey, Tommen is wedded to Margaery Tyrell. The Tyrells do not want to be kept waiting very long. Wedding guests wait with bated breath to see if Tommen survives to the wedding night, and they are thankful when he does.

Three days after the royal wedding, the raven arrives.

 _Jaime Lannister has wed Sansa Stark_.

Tyrion thinks Cersei intends to behead every red-haired girl in Westeros for how furious she is. _Does the septon know the wrath he’s incurred in a single message_ , he wonders. Tyrion is not angry about it the way his sister is. He just wonders, _what are you playing at, Jaime?_ Jaime has never wanted a wife, never wanted children. He’s only wanted two things out of this life:  his knighthood and their sister. These two things define his brother. Jaime is always the predictable one out of the three Lannister children. So much for predictable now that he's committed treason and wedded Sansa.

The smallfolk transform the news into a love story. The bards compose songs and sing them in the streets of the city. Even among the Red Keep, wild rumors spread, and Cersei can’t control any of them. He’s heard a few wild tales himself. One story says Jaime fell in love with her when he first saw her at Winterfell all those years ago. Another says Sansa wrote to her mother and begged for her lover’s release, and that was the real reason Catelyn freed him. There’s a rumor floating around that Jaime took Sansa’s maidenhead before he left for war and cites her indiscretion as the true reason Joffrey cast her off for Margaery Tyrell. It’s all nonsense of course, but nonsense always spreads the fastest.

Cersei’s orders are clear. She wants Jaime alive and Sansa dead. When the news breaks, she raises the reward from 1,000 to 10,000 gold dragons for the holder of Sansa’s head. He does not know what his sister has in store for Jaime. She may even forgive him if enough time passes, but she is usually more vengeful than she is sparing.

He has the opportunity to ask about her plans one night, but he doesn’t. She visits him in his room unexpectedly after she’s had a fair amount of wine. A smile plays at her lips.

“What has you in a good mood?” he asks cautiously.

“I just had a bard’s tongue ripped out,” she answers smugly.

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh, and what did this one say?”

“Some long and dreadful song about Sansa and Lyanna Stark. It warns that loving a Stark woman will only bring her lover’s demise.”

Tyrion clicks his tongue. “So, did you get a taste for blood and decide to rip out my tongue, too?”

“Much to my surprise, you haven’t said a word about it. I’d think you couldn’t wait to get a reaction from me.”

He leans towards her in his chair, anchoring his elbows to his thighs and holding his head in his interlocked fingers. He means to taunt her. “I can change that right now. Here’s a question for you. How does it feel to know that our beloved brother is probably fucking Sansa Stark right now?”

She hurls her goblet at him. “Do you think you are immune to me?” she hisses. “Do you think I can’t hurt you?”

“The only thing obvious to me is how easy it is to hurt _you_.”

This sobers her. Above all else, she loathes to be weak, and this is how Jaime has left her. She is drunk, cruel, and vulnerable.

“Is there any news on where they are?” he asks.

“None since the raven. The gold cloaks have been all over Duskendale.”

“I doubt they would have stayed there after eloping.”

“I do, too,” she agrees before her face turns darker. “Our father refuses to disinherit him.”

“Well, of course, he does. If Sansa gives him a son, our father may finally die in peace,” he tells her. "The Lannister line will be secure."

“If Sansa gives him a son, I’ll make her watch me rip the creature limb from limb.” She adds retrospectively, “Perhaps I’ll make Jaime do it. He killed my son. It’s only fitting he kill hers too.”

“Do you really believe Jaime had a hand in Joffrey’s death?” In a lower voice, he asks, “do you really believe he would murder his own son?”

She scoffs. “No, I never would have believed it, and I would have punished anyone who said he would. Then he ran off with Sansa Stark. Now I’ll believe anything.”

“She could have threatened him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Brother. Jaime could never be tricked by a young girl.”

“I recall you deceiving him multiple times in your youth,” he says. “It is possible that we all truly underestimated the Stark girl. She may have set out to seduce him.”

“How many noble girls in Lannisport set out to seduce him? He’s never devoted himself to any of them. Now he wraps a traitor’s whore daughter in the cloak of our family. He has brought us more shame than our late grandfather. Your own false marriage pales in comparison.”

The mention of Tysha quickens his pulse. His lioness sister is hunting her prey.  It reminds him who he is really speaking to. It enrages him.

“Get out,” he demands. “Go take your woes to someone else.”

She doesn’t move. He hates how she thinks she owns every room she walks into. She was this way even before she became the queen. 

“I heard a lovely little verse out and about today. You might have heard it too. It’s called ‘The Fair Face of Sansa Stark’.”

She leaves in a huff after that, and he is free to drink until he can’t think of Tysha anymore. In his moments of loneliness, he misses Shae fiercely. He hopes she is well in Pentos, spending the gold he sent to keep her comfortable. Things were too unstable to keep her in King’s Landing, no matter how much he selfishly wanted to. He hopes that one day he can join her in Pentos, but he knows this is as unlikely as reuniting with his first wife.

One thought brings him some satisfaction. No matter what, he can’t be as lonely as Cersei is right now. Tyrion made the decision to send his lover away; Cersei's left on his own. There’s a part of him that’s proud Jaime has wed Sansa. Cersei has never been as loyal to him as he’s been to her. She’s taken so much of his soul in their lives together. Jaime hasn’t just freed Sansa in their departure; he’s freed himself too. He toasts Jaime when he pours his next glass of wine and drinks it all in one long sip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was requested to do a chapter from either Tywin or Cersei's perspective, but I thought Tyrion would be a nice voice to have in King's Landing while also discovering how his family members are taking the news. I'm sorry this chapter is shorter than my usual chapters are. This one is more of an interlude. Thank you so much for reading!


	4. Jaime II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot going on in this chapter, and there's still a lot more to come. Thanks for reading!

He doesn’t believe in magic, or fate, or prophesy. The Targaryens breathed by it, but the words of witches have no effect on him. If Sansa is healed, it is because the woman had _real_ medicine in the vial, not a potion.

These are his thoughts in his restlessness. He cannot sleep. He stares at his palm instead while the witch’s smile haunts him. Sansa is finally asleep now that the bay is calmer. They sail west for the town of Fairmarket, though he has no desire to stay there. He thinks this time it is best they settle with the intention of finding work in a lord’s castle. They would be more secure that way, and they would be better cared for. Should Sansa’s illness return, she’d be sent to the castle’s maester; Jaime’s decided he’s quite finished with witches.

He is careful not to stretch his hand too much, or the wound will reopen. When Jaime had driven his dagger into her heart, she sunk to the ground, laughing. “You should not have done that,” she said, smiling wickedly as her breathing became harder.

She surprised him when she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him to the ground with a strength unexpected for a woman of her stature. Even for a man equal to Jaime’s size, the force would be extraordinary. Before he could protest what had happened and prepare for a fight, she had sliced her own blade through the skin of his palm and tasted the blood before releasing him.

He quickly stood up on his feet and looked down on the woman, while he held pressure to the wound. Her eyes bore into his. He knew she only had a few moments left.

“You could have gone on living if you hadn’t asked for her name.”

She laughed again. She had not groaned once. She must have felt pain in her final moments, but she didn’t show it. “And you could have known joy, Kingslayer, if you had not done this. But you cannot change it, and now the greatest suffering will befall everyone you love. You will watch every _one_ of them collapse, and when you have finished, when you are all that remains, only then may you finally join your loved ones in death.”

He had watched her quizzically as she took her final moments to curse him. Then, she finally succumbed to her injury, and Jaime exhaled a breath of relief. He was even more relieved when Sansa awoke hours later.

Most of their silver went to their current passage to Fairmarket, and from there, he plans a journey to Seagard. Though Lannister captives were held there during the war, they’ve been released since House Mallister bent the knee to House Frey after Robb Stark’s death. All the Lannisters are gone now, and Jaime has never had any interaction with Lord Mallister in his life, nor has Sansa. They will be safe there.

He thinks of the witch less frequently as they continue sailing up the Blue Fork and arrive in Fairmarket. The rest of their silver goes to procuring a horse and provisions for the journey to Seagard. His little wife is anxious, and it shows.

“What troubles you, Jeyne?”

“I worry that we won’t find work as easily as you think we will. We will be sleeping along the road without work.”

“I won’t leave you out in the cold.”

“While the notion is noble, you can’t create jobs where there are none.”

He pats her shoulder assuredly atop their newest mount and laughs. “You do not know how charming I can be.”

She rolls her eyes. “No, I suppose you do not save this side of yourself for your wife,” she quips good-naturedly.

“Well, it doesn’t matter much if I’m charming. You’re stuck with me either way.”

“As you are stuck with me, my husband. Perhaps I should make my manner less pleasing.’

The chuckle escapes his throat quickly. “Oh, you think you’ve been pleasing, do you? Questioning me at every turn, coughing until I’m at my wit’s end for how to help you?”

“Well, that settles it. From this moment on, I will be perfectly obliging. I will never question you, or trouble you with my coughs, though I suspect you prefer me the way I am.”

His grip tightens on the horse’s reins. He leans forward to see the smirk on his wife’s face. He is thankful her worry is momentarily forgotten, and he has lured forth the teasing tongue of his she-wolf.

“Perhaps I do,” he replies. “Obedience is best left to children, and you are not my child. You are my wife, so challenge me to your heart’s content.”

She laughs. “You will regret your words.”

“I often do.”

“Do you regret your marriage vows?” she asks carefully, straining her neck to look back at him as they continue riding. The meaning in her eyes is clear. She is asking if he regrets leaving with her, throwing his life away and dedicating himself to her protection.

“No, I cannot bring myself to regret those.”

“Good, because I am fond of those vows.”

They arrive in Seagard with smiles on their faces. He takes a deep breath in and relishes the salty air. The sea is so close, and it reminds him of Casterly Rock, the home he always said he had no intention of returning to. Though the Red Keep sits upon Blackwater Bay, the stench of the city overwhelms any pleasant smell of the sea.   

 “Do you hear the waves?” he asks his wife.

“I do,” she says, and her smile grows wider.

He arranges a meeting with the steward of Seagard, a tall man by the name of Harwyn Cullstone. The man is not unkind but can neither be described as warm. He introduces himself to the man and bows his head.

“Lucas Howell, what brings you to Seagard?”

“My wife and I come to serve House Mallister.”

“Where do you come from?” Cullstone asks.

“Deepwood Motte. I was a marshal to Lord Galbart Glover before his untimely death.”

The steward’s eyes widen, and it is exactly the reaction Jaime wants. If he delivers his story flawlessly, he’ll be working in no time.

“You’re a long way off.”

“I know it. We’ve had a long journey, but we _all_ have had a long and treacherous journey since Ned Stark lost his head.”

He has opinions about Stark’s death, for sure. His stance changes, and his glare hardens. He states, “House Mallister is loyal to the Iron Throne.”

“Of course. So are my wife and I. So is House Glover. It doesn’t change the fact that the Lannister men, the Crown’s men, chopped my hand off and killed my lord in the Battle of Oxcross.”

He holds up his right arm for the steward to inspect closely. “It doesn’t affect my ability to work,” he assures the man. “It’s the only part of me I let them get. When I returned home after King Robb’s death, I found my wife gravely ill. The maester suggested we go south. She’s too fragile for the cold, so we decided to come to the only place that wouldn’t execute us for serving Robb Stark.”

“We certainly will not punish you for that. Lord Mallister was the last lord of the Riverlands to bend the knee to Walder Frey after that horrible show of breaking guest rite.”

“The Freys may enjoy their status of a great house for now, but soon they will rot in the Seven Hells for it.”

“Alongside the Boltons and the Lannisters,” Cullstone agrees pointedly. For a second, Jaime thinks the man can see through him, but then he nods gruffly and hums in what Jaime thinks is approval.

“We have a marshal here already, but we can offer you a clerk position. You’d be traveling a bit, picking up shipments further down the river with your own command of men.”

Relief immediately floods his chest. “Oh, thank you, ser.”

“We will find a cottage for you and your wife to reside in. Now what can she do?”

“She is an excellent seamstress, but in truth, my Jeyne will excel in any task you see fit for her.”

“We have need for a laundress.”

“That would be perfect,” he says gratefully.

“Very good then. Welcome to Seagard.”

Later that night, he and Sansa settle into their little cottage by the sea. They have no neighbors on this specific strip of land, only the howling wind and crashing waves. They are given linens for their home, and Jaime gathers some wood for their hearth.

“How could you succeed so quickly?” she asks him with a small shake of her head as she hangs the curtains in their bedroom.

Usually he would wait until they were in bed to speak of it, but he is sure there is no one around for at least a mile. “I said we used to serve House Glover.”

She freezes. “What if they write to him? Your story will fall apart.”

“Lord Glover is dead, my lady,” he informs her. “His brother is lord of Deepwood Motte now, and he has no way of knowing who exactly was in his brother’s employ. Besides, I doubt they will even write.”

“You are very confident.”

“And that confidence has kept us warm and fed in a cottage of our own. It is better than I hoped for,” he says to her, suddenly growing irritated.

She crosses her arms. “You are very good at lying, too, preying on their loyalty to my brother. You claim to have served him when you spent the war in his cell.”

He scoffs as he approaches her. “We are not from Rosby either, but that lie didn’t seem to bother you when we used it in Maidenpool.”

“That lie did not mock the struggles of my family.”

“Sansa,” he begins, and her attention snaps to him. He’s never addressed her by her first name before, not without using her title. “I will be the _last_ person to mock those struggles.”

She does not believe him. She tears his eyes from his, but he presses his hand to her cheek and forces her to look at him. She will never believe him if she cannot see the sincerity in his eyes. She may think he’s so good at lying that she will never believe his words.

“You’re right. I spent a good amount of time in a cell. And from that cell, I saw your mother grieve your father and remembered my own father’s grief when my lady mother died. I saw her mourn for her children. Even your brother longed to be reunited with you; it was obvious. He wanted to make the trade for you and your sister, but he would have lost the support of his bannermen. And when word came of your little brothers, the whole camp could hear your mother’s wails.”

Sansa is properly crying now, but she doesn’t beg him to stop speaking. “My father lives,” he says. “My brother and sister live. We lost an uncle and a handful of cousins, and later my horrid nephew, but I can assure you not one Lannister wept the way your mother did. No family suffered more than the Starks, and not just in this most recent war. I was in the room when the Mad King burned your grandfather alive and forced your uncle Brandon to watch while he strangled himself to death. I’ll never understand how Rickard and Lyarra Stark could have four children, but only _one_ to inherit Winterfell. And that one, your father, had five of his own, and the only one to survive is the one in front of me right now.”

He offers her a kerchief to dry her tears, but as she wipes them away, more follow. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and holds her to him, hushing her gently. She presses her face to the crook of his neck, and he brushes her hair soothingly with his fingers. Some nights when she is restless, he’ll do the same thing until she relaxes enough to close her eyes and go to sleep.

“I may be a Lannister, but I will always have great respect for the Starks.”

She pulls back to look at him, tears still brimming her eyes. “I’m sorry I got so upset with you. I do not need to lecture you for mocking them. It is impossible for you to disrespect them when you serve my mother every day that you keep me safe.”

He wants to tell her that he hasn’t thought about her mother recently. He used to see her and only think of her desperate mother, but somewhere along the line, he started seeing Sansa. He heard her laughs and saw her goodness. He saw the wounds left by Joffrey and Cersei and saw that he could heal them. She was his act of spite and anger and honor, but now she is something different.

“At the risk of upsetting you again, I don’t think I serve your mother anymore,” he confesses to her. “I serve you, Sansa.”

Her breath catches, and she stills in his arms. Then she surprises him by wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him in a proper embrace. He anchors his arm around her waist and holds her to him for as long as she wants him to.

“You really aren’t going to abandon me, are you?” she whispers.

His breath is shaky with the realization of her effect on him. “No,” he tells her, and they hold each other closer.

He starts noticing her even more after that, not just her beauty, though it shines through her common clothes, but her traits. He starts comparing her to Cersei in his head, and this alarms him the most because he knows he is not simply comparing her to another woman in his life; he is measuring her against his last lover.

She is kind to others, and it is not just because she has to be. He thinks about when she let him sleep closer to the fire. Cersei never would have offered. Cersei never would have been comfortable in the life he and Sansa have created. Cersei always wanted power and prestige. He thought Sansa was the same way when they picked her up in Winterfell all those years ago, so eager to marry the prince, but her time as a hostage no doubt changed her. Now she’s found joy in their little home, and sometimes he even lets himself think she’s found joy in him. There is comfort between the two of them, for sure, but it is only recently he notices the joy beginning to blossom.

Soon after, he’s assigned the journey to Fairmarket with the company of twenty men, bringing horses and carts along with them. Seagard has no source of metals, so they must import them, and it is cheaper to pick them up in Fairmarket and bring them back instead of having them delivered.

“I’ve just realized we’ve never been parted from each other since we wed,” Sansa says when he gives her the news two months after they first arrive.

“It won’t be long, no more than seven days.”

“I will miss you,” she says softly.

“I will miss you, too.”

She hugs him before he leaves with his men, and it’s the first time his men truly realize which laundress his wife is. He’s mentioned a couple times that his wife is a laundress named Jeyne, but they surely must not have thought his wife was the uncommonly pretty one. Most of the laundresses are older, married, and plain.

“You didn’t say your wife was _that_ laundress,” a young clerk, Patrek Rivers, says.

“What does it matter which laundress my wife is?” he asks, waiting for the man to back himself into a corner.

“She’s just a young one, isn’t she?”

“She’s not too young to marry and mother children of her own,” he grunts out.

“Not too young for a man my age,” he quips. “Just too young for _you_.”

“You _are_ very young and inexperienced if you think it is appropriate to comment on your superior’s wife,” he agrees. “Since your youth is an advantage over the rest of us, why don’t you follow us on foot for a while? 20 miles, I doubt you’ll have any trouble. Meet us at camp tonight. We’ll make use of your horse in the meantime.”

Patrek stutters, and his eyes plead with him to take back his sentence. He has no intention to. He is in command of this man, and this man has disrespected him. There’s a bit of the lion in him after all.

It rains for three days straight out of the trip, and his clothes cling to him uncomfortably. He is so relieved when the bronze booming tower of Seagard comes into view along with the sounds of Ironman’s Bay. He and his men unload the shipment under the direction of the marshal, who stayed back during the trip, and he hasn’t had any trouble with his men since Patrek’s comment.

He sees her through one of the windows while lifting a heavy rod of steel. Her long, red hair is tied in a braid over her shoulder while she folds bedclothes. Her eyes are on him, though, like she’s been waiting for him to see her. She waves at him when his eyes meet hers. Immediately, she is called to some other task by another woman, and the woman whispers something to her that makes her blush and turn away. He wishes she wasn’t taken from the window so soon, but he will see her tonight.

“Tell me all about how terrible it was without me,” he implores when they sup together, a simple meal of hare and bread.

“Oh, so terrible. I could spread out as far as I wanted in bed and sleep without your incessant snoring.”

“Well, then, I must request to leave again. Anything to please my lady wife.” He abruptly gets up from his chair and tries not to smile when his wife’s melodic laugh reaches his ears.

“Come back to the table. Eat the food I took the time to make for you.”

Her cooking is improving, and he is extremely grateful for it. At first, everything was burned or raw, but now she’s found her way. She’s adapted, which is another thing he admires about her.  

They sit beside their fire that night when she reaches out and combs her fingers through his hair. He moves closer to her, and she rests her fingers lightly upon the strands around his ear.

“It’s gotten so long,” she says. It’s true. It falls in his eyes, and the back nearly brushes his shoulders. “I could cut it for you.”

“Have you ever cut anyone’s hair?” he asks.

“It cannot be so difficult. You should let me.”

“And why should I?”

“It’s something I understand wives do for their husbands. Let me try. I can’t accidentally take the shears to your neck,” she assures him.  

“In the morning, you may take the shears to it. For now,” he reorients his body towards the fire and places his head in her lap. He smiles when he hears a startled gasp escape her throat. He continues, “keep running your fingers through it, if you please.”

She does, and it is heavenly. Later, she caresses his cheek and ushers him to bed.

“Why can’t we stay right here?” he whines, mostly to hear his wife laugh.

“Our bed is much more comfortable,” she says.

She does not play with his hair in their bed, though. She sticks to her side of the bed the way he sticks to his. This night, unlike the others they have shared, he is drawn to her. He wants to play with her and evoke smiles from her as they drift off to sleep. Instead, he decides on one simple action. She rests on her side, so he quickly leans forward and kisses her cheek before confining himself back to his side of the bed.

“Goodnight, wife.”

In the candlelight, he can see the blush of her cheeks. “Good night, husband.”

She takes care when she cuts his hair, doing her best to keep the cut even. He hates staying still like this, and she scolds him gently when he moves.

“If you keep on moving, I will not be able to help the outcome.”

“Well how can I help it when you insist on taking all the time in the world?”

“I can go slower.”

“I don’t think you can.”

When she finishes the back of his hair, she stands in front of him. He sits on a little chair before her, and he opens his legs for her to stand between them. He isn’t sure if it helps her any, but he’s just doing his knightly duty. She finishes soon after and seems pleased with her work.

“There, now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Not the torture you imagined?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen myself yet.”

“Go look then,” she says and begins sweeping his golden locks off the floor.

He hurries to the vanity in their bedroom, the only one in the cottage. He looks over for any imperfections and finds that she has done rather well. Pleased, he rejoins his wife and helps her finish cleaning. They can’t stay much longer before they must be present for work.

“Oh, a smile. You must have found that I left you just as handsome.”

“‘Handsome’,” he repeats, testing the word on his tongue. “I don’t think you’ve called me that one before. You should say it more often.”

“Handsome, arrogant, insufferable—I’ve used them all. Now, _come_ , or we will be late.”

They start a routine of walking to the castle together in the mornings. It is about a mile’s walk, and he prefers to walk it with her company. She makes him feel lighter, even younger at times. There comes a point when he even stops comparing her to Cersei, and then there is only her. There is only his red-haired wife of the North. At first, he wonders if he desires her simply because she is the only woman he’s around, but on his trips away from her, he longs to be near her again.

He leaves her every other month and holds her close each time he returns. He kisses her cheek every night before bed, and she seeks out his hand to hold. They carry on like this until he returns from another trip shortly after her sixteenth nameday.  

“Every time I see you through one of those windows, you’re laughing at something one of those crones says,” he notices. “What do they say to you?”

She shakes her head. “They just talk.”

“What about?”

“They mainly joke about their husbands. Some of it I do not understand, but some I do.”

He crosses his arms in front of him, but his face is still playful. “Oh? What do you say about me?”

“I don’t make jokes about you,” she insists. Her cheeks redden. “A lot of what they say is inappropriate, and I laugh only because I am shocked.”

This brings a smirk to his face. “I see.”      

 She blushes even more under his gaze. “ _That_ is all for that conversation, my husband.”

“No, no, I truly want to hear the vulgar things these women are saying to my innocent wife.”

“I will not repeat them,” she says, “but I do have a question.”

“Go on.”

“Is what they say true?” she stutters out.

“How can I know if you won’t tell me what they say.”

“They talk about how much they enjoy the _affections_ of their husbands.”

He laughs at her openly. “This surprises you?”

“It goes against what I was taught by my septa, that a husband’s affections must be endured to produce heirs.”

“I never understood why they left that part to the septas, who do not know for themselves.”

“So it is true?”

He thinks of a way to reply delicately. “Tell me, in those romances you know so well, when knights save their lady loves from some great peril, how do their ladies repay them?”

“With a kiss.”

“Do you think it’s a simple peck like the awkward one shared at our wedding, or a passionate one that hints at more passion for the young couple?”

She does not reply, but his meaning obviously resonates with her. She pauses meditatively before she fixes her eyes on him. “You are a knight,” she says, “who saved me from great peril.”

“You do not have to repay me,” he tells her.

“I want to,” she says sincerely. She does not move, though, as if she is stuck to her seat near the window, so he walks towards her, one step at a time, heart beating all the way until his right arm is hooked around her waist, and his hand is tucking her hair behind her ear. She shivers beneath his touch.

“Do you mean it?” His lips hover above hers. One small movement forward, and they’d be joined.  

“I want to be your wife in more than name only. I never thought I’d have a good husband, but I do. I have a good, caring knight, just like I’ve always wanted.”

She presses her lips to his, and he needs no further validation. He can see it in her dilated pupils and hear it in her heavy breaths; she wants him. She desires him the way he desires her. He kisses her ardently and tugs his fingers into her hair, pulling her to him as closely as he can. And then his fingers leave her hair and trail down her neck. His mouth follows, pressing kisses to the sensitive skin.

She writhes against him, unfamiliar with the pleasure. He brings his lips back to hers and leaves them there. Her cheek is warm when he lays his hand upon it. He regrets to break their kiss, and she even protests when their lips part, but he caresses her neck and rests his forehead on hers. He can feel her heart beating, and he is sure his matches.

“It only gets better,” he tells her.

“I was taught there is a lot of pain.”

He shakes his head. “Some men are not gentle. You have to be gentle when you love a woman. If at any time, you feel pain, tell me, and I’ll stop.”

She nods, leaning forward to kiss him again. He places one arm around her shoulder and sweeps the other under her knees to pick her up off the floor, all without breaking their kiss. She hums contentedly against him, linking her arms tightly around his neck. He carries her over to their bed, and sits at the foot of it, keeping his wife firmly planted in his lap. She takes her hands from his neck to shrug down the sleeves of her dress, leaving the skin of her shoulders exposed. He nestles his head against her neck, trailing kisses across the smooth skin of her collarbone and shoulders. His hand moves down her neck, further and further, until he comes to her breast, and she shudders.

“My head is spinning,” she confesses. “I am so nervous.”

“We can stop.”

“I don’t want to stop. Please.” She kisses his cheek. “Just be patient with me.”

“I can do that,” he promises.

And he is. He is gentle with her, but their coupling is no less passionate. There are no scrapes down his back, but he can still feel the heat of her kisses as they sear his bare skin. Layers of clothing pile up on the floor, and soon they are fully exposed to each other. It only makes him want her more. There is no rush in their coupling either, nor anything forbidden. He is consummating his marriage to his wife; even the High Septon cannot condemn him for this.

He can tell there is some discomfort when he enters her, though she tries to hide it from him. He makes no effort to go further, only to relax her with delicate kisses. After a careful few moments, he can enter her fully, and the sheer amount of bliss he feels is overwhelming. He rests his head against his wife to let her adjust to him before he begins moving.

He loves the way she feels, and he loves how eager she is. He thrusts in and out, slowly at first, gradually faster and faster, grunting when he feels his peak upon him, while he presses kisses to Sansa’s neck. He wants her to feel valued through this, not used. It does not take long before he’s spilling his seed inside her, sighing deeply into the skin of her cheek.

“Gods, that was amazing,” he says to her.

She hums agreeably, wiping away the beads of sweat on his forehead. “I enjoyed myself very much.”

He laughs. “Ever the lady, even in bed.”

She smiles. “We are man and wife now, truly,” she reminds him.

He kisses her. Her kiss is mesmerizing. She folds into him when they sleep at night, and they no longer restrict themselves to specific sides of the bed. They spend the next few weeks as if they are a couple newly married, rather than a couple wed for over a year.  

Their bliss is short-lived. All too soon, he makes another trip to Fairmarket, and it is here he receives the news.

“So sad about the Princess Myrcella,” someone passing by says.

He calls the woman back. “What about Princess Myrcella?” he asks.

“Well, down in King’s Landing, Prince Oberyn challenged one of the Lannisters’ men to a duel. Something about avenging his sister, but he didn’t get to. The Lannisters’ man killed him, so Prince Oberyn’s family poisoned the princess and shipped her body back to the Queen. Bloody savages, all those nobles.”

He walks away from the woman without thanking her, suddenly feeling trapped. He is cantankerous all the way back to Seagard as he mourns his only daughter silently, the lovely girl he watched grow from a distance, his only girl, now dead at the tender age of twelve.

He never wanted to feel like a father to any of them in case anyone took notice. Cersei was so careful about it. She never let him hold any of the children or even speak to them alone as they grew, but he was still protective of them. He always forced himself to think of them as his sister’s children, but still he loved them because they were _hers_. He still wanted them to live long lives without the heartache he and their mother had known. He imagines Cersei now in the wake of this. _We must be on the verge of another war_ , he thinks.

Sansa is excited to see him again, as she always is when he returns, but he is still wrapping his head around the news. She urges him to lose himself in her when they arrive at their cottage, but he cannot bring himself to.

“I am so sorry about Myrcella.”

“She was a lovely, innocent girl.”

“The realm is not kind to lovely, innocent girls.”

“The realm is not kind to _anyone_ ,” he growls. He cannot think of anyone who has not had their unfair lot of shit. Everyone suffers, and everyone loses what is dear to them.

“There should be no secrets between us,” she says to him.

He laughs bitterly. “I think you’ll find it much better that there are.”

“Are the rumors true?”

“Which ones?”

“You _know_ which ones.”

He’s been lying for years. He doesn’t know why he can’t do it one more time. “Yes. All three of them are mine. Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen.”

She nods. “Now I understand where Myrcella and Tommen came from,” she says. “King Robert was all brute, and Queen Cersei was cruel. I could never figure out where they got their goodness.”

She flatters him in his shameful secret. He never used to be ashamed, but the longer he is away from King’s Landing, the more he hates what they did. He hates their secret and how it bled the realm dry.

“Do you not hate me for siring Joffrey?”

“I do not hold you responsible for his actions. If you had been in King’s Landing, I doubt you would have let him continue on the way that he did. You would have halted him in his actions.”

“You do not know that!” he exclaims. “You have created delusions of me in your head, and you must forget them. I am no good knight.”

“Yes, you are,” she insists.

“Do you really want to clear the air?” he angrily demands. “No more secrets between us. Redeem me for this one, my lady. _I_ am the one who pushed your brother from the window of the broken tower. _I_ crippled him.”

Her eyes widen, and she jumps up from their bed, rushing to the window and staring out. She is frozen there, and he does not call her back. He regrets taunting her the way he did, and he regrets the horrified look in her eyes when the meaning of his words sank in.

“ _Why_?” she begs to know, tears in her eyes.

“He saw Cersei and I. We were worried he would tell someone, so I pushed him and hoped the fall would kill him.”

She begins sobbing, and her reply surprises him. “I wish it had,” she says. “I wish he never woke up, so he would never have to know what happened after. He never would have lived to know what was done to our father or lived to see Theon Greyjoy march in with his Ironborn. He never would have been _burned_.”

She clutches the curtains in her hand, holding them for support.

“I believe anyone would rather fall to his death than burn alive. You know it’s true. You’ve heard the screams. When you fall to death, there is no scream, only the sound of every bone breaking, and the breath forced from the body. Who knows which is better, in truth?”

He winces. “Do you see? I am no good man. Who knows where Myrcella and Tommen truly came from? They may not even be mine; I learned Cersei was not faithful to me.”

“You saved me.”

“Yes, I so nobly killed your guards and forced you to play the part of my wife.”

 “I was the one who wanted to wed you. I was the one who wanted to consummate our marriage. Do not misunderstand. I am angry that you nearly killed Bran, but believe me when I say you are not evil. I have known evil, and it had my father’s head cut off right in front of me and forced me to look at his head on a spike.”

She has never spoken of her father’s execution this way. He didn’t know that she had seen her father die. _I suppose mad kings prefer it that way_. He shudders remembering how Aerys made Brandon Stark watch.

“I am sorry, my lady, but good men do not push innocent boys from towers.”

“Then spend the rest of your life making it up to me,” she pleads. “Redeem yourself, and not just for me. Make yourself into someone you are proud of. My brother is dead. You can never make it up to him, but you and I live. You are not born good or bad, and you can never be wholly one or the other. You choose who you are. Choose to be good. Promise me you will, and we will never speak of this again.”

Her words humble him as much as her tears distress him. “I promise,” he tells her, and he intends to keep it.

She really does not mention it again, nor does she treat him any differently after that night. Perhaps it is her way to cope, but it could be that he has found himself a forgiving wife. He begins to bring her lavender clippings, baskets full of them, since they are her favorite. He massages her shoulders at night after they work. He helps the marshal teach the young children of the castle to ride horses, and he sees Bran Stark in every boy and Myrcella in every girl.

He catches her watching him from the window again, and she is smiling while he teaches a young boy how to steady the horse.

 “You were very good with the children today,” she says that night as she prepares for bed.

“I know you said we would not speak of it, but I imagine each boy is a chance to slowly do right by your brother.”

She kisses him, and it is her most loving kiss since his awful confession. “My good husband,” she whispers against his lips. “I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“There will soon be another child for you to do right by,” she says as she takes his hand and presses it to her belly.

His eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll have to go to the maester soon, but I am quite sure.”

He keeps his palm firmly to her belly, though there is no indication yet that she is with child. Then he kisses her happily, his Sansa, his wife, and the mother to his unborn child.


	5. Sansa II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't been able to update as frequently! School has taken up much more of my time than I originally thought, but I hope you enjoy this update!

It’s strange knowing there’s a child inside her. She can’t see the evidence yet, but she feels so different. She is perpetually exhausted, dreading every morning she must leave her bed and make the mile’s walk to the castle. It’s the first time she’s truly hated working, and she finds herself having trouble staying awake in the monotony of her labor. Even the other laundresses, whose company she normally enjoys, cannot rouse her. They have brought their own children into the world, and it seems none of them were given any extra mercy for it, so they will not give her any.

She longs for the mercy. She longs for Jaime to tell her that it’s all right if she stays in bed today. She prays that she won’t need to carry Lady Mallister’s heavy gowns up those endless steps, relying on her own memory to know where exactly to put her feet since the piles in front of her can be so high that she can never see forward.

 _This is wrong_ , Sansa thinks. She is a Stark of Winterfell and the wife of Jaime Lannister. In a better world, one she imagines quite often, she is the Lady of Casterly Rock. The Lady of Casterly Rock would be in bed when she wished, allowed short walks when she wished, attended by several servants, and presented with never-ending gifts for her future babe. Sometimes when her temper runs short, she wants to scream those very thoughts at everyone around her. She wants to let everyone know she is Sansa Lannister from the songs, and she needs to rest as she carries a child thousands of years in the making, descended from the old kings in the North and of the West. Some days the exclamation is on the tip of her tongue, but just when she thinks her temper will get the best of her, she controls herself, pushing the thoughts back to the corner of her mind where the imaginary world lives.

In this imaginary world King Robert is still on the throne. Her father is still Hand, and the people of King’s Landing are not so vicious. Joffrey will never be the king. He will die a prince, peacefully, before anyone can learn what a monster he truly is. In this world, she has the pleasure to know Jaime in King’s Landing, and she admires him. Eventually, she catches his eye, and upon dismissal from the Kingsguard, he courts her with the reluctant and well-earned consent of her father. They marry soon after, and he whisks her away to Casterly Rock. She writes to her family often, especially her mother and especially now. She asks how her mother endured this condition five times, how she dealt with the discomfort, how she prepared for her children, how the fear did not cripple her. In this world, her mother can write back. Her questions are answered.

She doesn’t tell Jaime about this perfect world she creates. She never stops adding to it as she steps in Jeyne Howell’s shoes. She doesn’t think he’d be too pleased about it. She does not want him to think she is ungrateful or foolish. Sometimes she finds him staring in a daze, at some point directly in front of him, and only after a minute can she derive his attention. _Do you do it, too_ , she wants to ask him.

He does it one night while he runs his fingers through her hair. He likes playing with the strands while they lay in their bed. He usually relaxes her this way until she falls asleep. Most of the time, she falls asleep first and he follows her soon after, but not recently. Recently, his fingers have stilled in her hair and his eyes have fluttered shut before she grows weary. When he stops combing through her hair, she thinks this is exactly what’s happened.

“You trudge through the morning half-asleep and yet you stay awake at night,” he notices to her surprise.

“I don’t set out to do it,” she tells him regretfully.

“Normally my attentions put you to sleep.” She can see the smirk forming on his lips in the moonlight drifting through the room. “What has changed?”

She shrugs, shifting closer towards him and pulling their covers tighter around her body. He rests his hand tenderly on her neck and draws his face closer to hers. She exhales deeply, and they’re close enough for him to feel her breath on his lips.

“Sometimes I wonder if I stay up at night because it’s when I get to be Sansa.”

“I knew it was a mistake to refer to each other by our true selves in private. Now you wish to be Sansa all the time.”

“I didn’t say that,” she protests. “I just want to be her right now.”

“Why? Let her rest. She must be exhausted,” he quips.

“ _I_ am exhausted, but I can’t shut the fear out. Aren’t you afraid, Jaime?”

“Afraid of what?”

“Aren’t you afraid to raise our child this way? Of course, you and I know who we are, but we cannot tell our babe. Our little one will never know who he or she really is. Doesn’t that thought fill you with dread?”

He sighs deeply. “It does, but not nearly as much as if our child’s safety is threatened.”

She briefly thinks of Bran, what Jaime did the last time his children were threatened, but she pushes the image away. She does not want to think of the siblings she could not protect, not when she’s grappling with whether she can keep this child safe.

“Are you unhappy here?” he asks.

“No!”

He looks like he doesn’t believe her. He thinks her own displeasure is the reason for this conversation.

“Our child is the heir to two kingdoms,” she reminds him.

“I’m aware.”

“You take it lightly.”

“No, I don’t, but what do you really expect to happen? Let’s say we have a son who discovers his identity and wants to take his place as the heir to these two kingdoms. His mother’s Northmen will never accept him because of who his father is, and his father’s sister will have assassins after him before he can ever try to lay claim to the Westerlands. A daughter hungry for power will meet a similar fate.”

“Would she truly be hungry for power if it is her birthright?”

“Careful with that statement, wife. You’ve just given leave for Daenerys Targaryen to take Westeros by any means necessary. Is that what you want for our child? Driven only by power. People like that tend not to live too long.”

“It’s not the power I’m after,” she realizes. “It’s the continuation of the family, our houses. I want to tell my children stories of Winterfell, stories of my parents and my siblings. Don’t you want to pass your own memories to them? Don’t you want them to know how it felt when you stood on the very top of Casterly Rock and looked out into the sea? Don’t you want them to know about your mother’s goodness?”

His jaw tightens as she mentions these little details. “Maybe when the child is older, you and I can discuss this again, but for now, that babe in you is a Howell and will only ever be a Howell.”

“Jaime, please.”

“I’m tired, Jeyne. Let’s go to sleep.”

“Jaime,” she cries. “Don’t call me that. We’re alone.”

He kisses her. “Good night, Jeyne.”  

He leaves for Fairmarket the next day. She does not try to discuss it with him again.

While he is away, Sansa takes care to distract herself with her work. She focuses only on the folding and washing, turning the clothing so she does not burn herself in the scalding water as she did a few times when she first started working as a laundress. She sings to herself as she works, whatever songs come to mind whenever they do. It helps her enjoy the work more. She sings quietly while she roams the halls, thinking no one can hear her.

“You have a lovely voice,” someone says to her, crushing the idea that she was alone. She turns to find the woman who said this and gasps. It is Lady Mallister. She curtsies.

“Thank you, my lady.”

“I wish I was blessed with the gift of song. Tell me, do you know any instruments to accompany your voice?”

She hesitates, wondering if she should say, before she decides to answer honestly. “I can play the harp, my lady.”

Lady Mallister smiles. “I don’t suppose you can read, too?”

“I can, my lady. My father insisted we all know how.”

“This is excellent!” the woman exclaims. “Tell me your name.”

“Jeyne Howell.”

“Ah, yes, you are handsome Lucas’s wife,” she remembers. Sansa nods. “Dear girl, I have been searching for a minstrel and a companion. My own eyesight is worsening, and I can no longer read books the way I did in my youth. I miss them terribly, but it is no use having someone read them to you when you cannot tolerate the person’s voice. Your voice is sweet as honey, and if you are an excellent reader, I would be thrilled to have you in my employ. You need not worry of staying on as a laundress. You would only need to keep me entertained.”

Sansa beams at the offer. She never expected such a fortunate encounter. “I would be most honored, my lady. When may I begin?”

“Now, of course. The other laundresses will manage without you, and if they cannot, we will find one to take your place. Come, I have a harp in my solar. I would like to hear you play.”

Lady Mallister is impressed with her playing of the instrument, though Sansa can only hear her own mistakes. It has been so long since she’s been able to practice the skill. Her fingers do remember, though, and she loves the sound she makes with the beautiful strings. She plays the Song of the Seven and sings the verses aloud. When she is through, Lady Mallister asks her to play if for her two more times through. Although Sansa wishes to play something else, she is only happy to have an instrument to play again.

She spends her days with Lady Mallister now, reading to her lady until she wishes to stretch her legs on a walk. Then Sansa accompanies her to the gardens. She speaks with her occasionally, but most of the time, Lady Mallister only wishes to speak to her. It reminds Sansa of spending time with Cersei and Margaery, though Lady Mallister is not unkind at all.

The babe quickens while Jaime is away. She feels the flutter while she runs her hands through the breathtaking field of lavender near the castle, initially surprised by it and then overwhelmed with joy when she realizes what it is.

“Do it again, little one,” she urges, rubbing the small swell of her belly. There is nothing for a while, but then she feels the flutter again.

“Yes, just like that!”  

When Jaime returns, she can tell he is suspicious of her good mood. When he left, she was angry with him, and he likely expected to find her angry still, but it is so tiring to stay discontented. She would rather have peace between them, so when he returns, she kisses him excitedly and grabs his left hand to place on her waist.

“Go on, your father’s home now. Show him,” she encourages. When Jaime looks at her oddly, she explains, “The babe quickened. I can feel the flutters every day now.”

He laughs happily. “Is it a boy, do you think? Hitting and kicking already?”

“I do not know. It could still be a girl.”

He keeps his hand on her belly, rubbing in a circular motion, maybe with the intent for this to rouse their child to move. It does not work, but he is no less thrilled by the good news.

“I think it’s a boy,” he tells her.

“I do not have any inclination one way or the other.”

“Aren’t you supposed to know?” he teases.

“There is no way I can know for sure,” she protests. “But I do know that girl or boy, I love this baby very much. I am thrilled every time I feel the flutter.”

“You will be a good mother,” he tells her. She is honored by the sentiment.

“And you will be a good father,” she returns. Only then does he remove his hand from her belly to fold her hand in his and pull her closer. They have not had a proper reunion yet, and Jaime seems intent on changing that, kissing her fiercely and bringing his fingers to quickly undo her laces. Her body is pressed against his while he sucks at the flesh of her neck. He grazes his tongue over the skin he’s nipped with his teeth.

The baby quickens again, and she knows Jaime is close enough to feel it. She laughs at the babe’s timing and looks up to him to see his reaction. He stares back at her in awe, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“It seems we have woken him,” Jaime says.

“You are his father. Urge him back to sleep. His mother and father wish to be alone now,” she utters as seductively as she can. Jaime’s lips are back on hers in a heartbeat and she chuckles breathlessly when she realizes she must have succeeded.

She’s never had another lover, but she knows he has. Sometimes she worries he does not enjoy her as much as he did Cersei. Sometimes she wonders how she could compare to the thrill of the forbidden affair he carried on, where she stands against a woman who bore him three children already. But she suspects he’s grown tired of the secrecy. She suspects he hated watching his children grow up with another man’s name. Her husband is a consummate lover with the large heart of a lion. He lives to love and be loved. She loves him. She loves _only_ him, and she hopes that will be enough. She never admits to him how deeply she’s grown to love him, and he never says it to her first, but perhaps it’s an unspoken truth between the two of them.

He says it in his goodnight kisses and the way he runs his fingers through her hair. He says it every day that he brings her lavender clippings and piles extra wood in the hearth to keep her warm. He says it in the way he worries after her when she begins coughing again and when he invites her to walk on the beach.

She loves him. She never expected to, but she does, and she thinks the two of them fit. He lives to love, and so does she. Both their hearts have been injured in the pursuit of love before, but they can heal each other now. Their child will only deepen the love they have for each other. 

The pain is sharp some months later in the gardens with Lady Mallister. She is heavy with child now, and the final weeks have been some of the most uncomfortable. She feels sporadic pain occasionally, and wonders if she will be ready for the childbed. This time she has no doubt.

“Oh, Jeyne, I’ll call for the maester.”

“I must go to Lucas.”

“No, my dear. The childbed is no place for a husband.”

She panics. She needs him to be with her. She asks again, and Lady Mallister refuses her again. She is ushered out of the garden to a spare bed quickly while Lady Mallister rushes after Maester Amis. The pains intensify, and she knows they will go on for hours. She does not think she will have this child before the sun sets, and so Jaime will come looking for her when she does not return to their cottage.

Maester Amis enters the spare room with a handful of menacing-looking iron tools. She wonders what he could do with them, but he assures her they are only to be used in the case of emergencies.

“Do you think I will need them?” she asks him worriedly.

“No, my child,” he tells her. “I think the Mother is watching over you.”

There are a few maids called to help the maester whenever he needs. Usually they bring him more water and hold cooled rags to Sansa’s forehead as she breathes heavily and cries from the pain. It is worse than anything she’s ever experienced, but she reminds herself that this will be the only pain to result in happiness.

She has no way to know how the time passes in the birthing bed. She thinks it’s been hours, but she fears only minutes have passed as the sun still looms high in the sky.

Through the door, she thinks she can hear Jaime’s voice. Instantly, her mood lifts. He breaks through the door and meets her eyes while the maester shoots up from his place on the bed and huffs at Jaime’s presence.

“This woman is my wife. Surely, I can stay with her,” he says.

Maester Amis shakes his head, the older man set in his ways. “Husbands before you have had no trouble going about their work while their babes are born. I don’t see why you should be the exception, Howell.”

Jaime’s eyes darken, and he laughs in a way that reminds Sansa he was once referred to as The Smiling Knight.

“I will not leave her.”

“It is not proper—”

Sansa’s scream interrupts the maester, and both men return their attention to her. Jaime rushes to the bed and kneels at her side, offering his hand to her. The maester examines her once again.

“It won’t be much longer,” he says, but it feels like an eternity passes before she’s allowed to push.

Jaime whispers kind words in her ear that don’t even resonate with her. She knows he’s there, although she is in too much pain to do anything but squeeze his hand. She can focus on nothing else but how much longer it will take before the maester can pull the child out of her. She waits to be told to push, and the movement is so exhausting, she doesn’t think she can do it again when the maester tells her to.

“Push!” he demands. She does not move.

“Jeyne, love, you have to push.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. You can, and you must,” her husband says gently.

She pushes two times more before she hears the sweet declaration from Maester Amis.

“A boy,” he says.

Sansa laughs, perfectly relieved to know it’s over. She stretches her neck to see her baby, pushing her upper body off the bed. Jaime holds her back in place.

“Easy, now. Do not hurt yourself.”

They can hear their little son crying now while the maester inspects him. _He wants his mother_ , Sansa thinks. _Let him have his mother_. Soon enough, their boy is handed to Jaime, wrapped in a clean, white linen. As the father, he has the privilege to see him first. Jaime surprises her when he does not take advantage of his superior position and instead places the baby in her arms.

“A boy,” Jaime repeats in her ear.

She is mesmerized by the bundle before her, wailing in her arms. She hushes him as gently as she can, rocking him, dropping kisses to his warm skin. He has the faintest little blonde hairs on his head and striking green eyes. It’s too soon to tell the other features, but for now it appears their boy will favor Jaime.

“What will we name him?” he asks her.

“Jason,” Sansa replies without hesitation.

She’s left him speechless. It was a name she decided on a while ago. She wanted their firstborn son to have a name of the Lannisters from a time when their families were not at war. She thought the name of his mother’s father, Ser Jason Lannister, a war commander who led thousands of men during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, was fitting. As Jason is common enough at Seagard since it is also the name of their Lord, it is perfect.   

Jason Howell, named for their gracious Lord Jason Mallister. If only Maester Amis knew he had just delivered Jason Lannister. She laughs at the thought.

“Hold him,” Sansa urges.

She knows how important it is for Jaime to hold him. He never held Cersei's children. She wants him to feel the surge of love she did just now, the love and pride her parents and his must have felt so many years ago. She carefully hands the soothed babe to his father and looks on peacefully as they bond.

“What do you think? Will he do?” she asks.

“Oh, he’s all right.”

“He looks like you already.”

“I don’t know. He has your coloring.”

“But your hair and eyes,” she tells him sleepily. She should rest now that she knows Jason is safe with Jaime. The last sight before her eyes is Jason wrapping his impossibly tiny hand around Jaime’s finger, and her last thought is what a perfect child the two of them made. Their perfect Jason. May the Gods help anyone who would dare to bring him harm.


	6. Cersei I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been a month since I last updated this story! When I originally drafted the story, I had Tyrion as the POV character for the interlude, but I really wanted to write Cersei instead. Hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you do!

_Why is the world so fickle,_ she wonders. _Why are the Gods so cruel? Why has her dynasty been reduced to shreds?_ She still cannot wrap her head around the events leading up to her beloved Myrcella’s death, and this time her twin’s arms are not here to hold her.

Her father is here, dreadful man that he is, insisting on marrying her off to Loras Tyrell. Cersei will make sure it never happens. Highgarden has already made their insipid rose a queen; they won’t marry their heir off to another member of her family.

Her father does not mourn her sweet, golden girl. Her father does not declare war on Dorne. So she charges at him. “For all you say about how important our family is, you refuse to act on the murder of your granddaughter!”

He firmly calms the hands that mean to strike him. “Was it an unfortunate event? Yes. Will we go to war with an entire kingdom for it? No.” 

“There was a time you would have,” she accuses, bitterly remembering how her father called his banners when Tyrion was taken hostage by Catelyn Stark. “Even the great Tywin Lannister has lost his claws. I wonder if I’m the only lion who still has them.”

“Careful, Cersei. You are in mourning. You make yourself vulnerable.”

Her shoulders stiffen, and her lips purse. Her father is wrong. He is wrong so often these days. “No, Father, I assure you I am as ferocious as ever. You see, I would have our armies march into Dorne and slay every last man, woman, and child.”

“Oh, how thoroughly clever of you,” he mocks. “Slay everyone in Dorne for the death of our princess. If they had followed your advice all those years ago after the death of Elia Martell, your children would not have been born at all, and we would not be in this situation.”

“Blood for blood,” she recites. This is the way of the world. Fear is the only thing that prevents the first drop. Ellaria should have feared what would happen to her when she smeared poison on her sweet Myrcella’s lips. “Why do you hesitate? A Lannister always pays his debts.”

“The debt _has_ been paid, Cersei!” he uncharacteristically shouts. He does not usually need to shout. The world fears him to the point that he needs only to whisper to be heard, but Cersei will not hear what he says. “Prince Doran had Prince Oberyn’s paramour and her bastard conspirators put to death for their actions, each of them beheaded by Prince Trystane. Myrcella’s killers met their ends, just as I would always have seen it done. All we can do now is bury her and carry on. Your son will produce an heir. You will marry Loras Tyrell.”

“Enough about Loras!” she shrieks, throwing herself away from him and towards the window instead. She can see the harbor from up here, all the ships coming and going, like the one that brought her daughter’s lifeless body home.

She would bring Oberyn back to life and kill him dreadfully a thousand times for how his actions affected her daughter. She would burn Ellaria again and again and make her lover watch, make their children watch. She hates Prince Trystane for how he executed them. They deserved no quick death.

“No, I have tolerated your tantrums long enough. You will marry him if I must drag you through the sept and press your lips to his. We need the Reach more than ever. Their harvest will keep our people fed through the long winter. You will secure it for us.”

“No, I won’t,” she informs him resolutely. Her eyes are still stuck to the harbor; her back faces him obstinately. She can hear his footsteps towards the door.

“Yes, you will.”

When he leaves her, she almost laughs. It’s the first time she’s had the urge to since Joffrey died, since Jaime fled with that whore, and now since Myrcella. But the thought she has is too pleasant to contain, and so the laugh nearly escapes after all these forlorn events.

 _No, I won’t_.

Her father does not usually drink wine, but he’ll indulge in tea every now and then. Today is one of those times. She commands one of her handmaids to leave the special drink for him, freshly hot and smelling of sweet honey.

Pycelle would have been tricky given his alliance to her father. She could have bribed him, but she still is not certain if he would comply. He is dangerous. Qyburn, on the other hand, only serves her. She presents him with the idea, and it thrills him. He familiarizes her with an array of weapons for her arsenal, explaining the effects of each.

She will not have blood pooling down her father’s nose as it had happened to Joffrey when he was poisoned. In this instance, she has no desire for theatrics. Three weeks exactly after Cersei’s little discussion with her father, his heart stops working. As he descends the stairs from the hall of his chambers, he clutches his chest and falls down several steps. Two stories, she thinks, before he stops.

 Men rush to help him. Cersei rushes to his side, calling at the top of her lungs for more men. He is already dead, though, eyes locked open and lips permanently parted. Lips desperately trying to draw breath. Lips smelling faintly of honey.

“How convenient that you are no longer forced to marry the Knight of Flowers,” Tyrion mentions as the two siblings view their father’s body. She has known that he would accuse her. Tyrion is the only one with the potential to act against her, but he won’t. He cares too much about his own survival, and after all these years, he knows what she is capable of.

“Isn’t it funny how we have the tendency to think great men are immortal?” she asks innocently.

“His death was indeed quite _sudden_.” Malice forms every word. She does not look at her brother; she only looks at her father now. He is the most powerful man she’s ever known, and his end has come. If he was so powerful, and she was his end, what does that make her now?

“That is the way with men of his age. They are worn from years of battle. I am only thankful he did not leave us sooner.”

“No, of course. You wouldn’t have been able to use him if he died sooner. I suppose I must make myself useful to you too before my heart suddenly stops beating.”

Her eyes gleam, and they finally meet his mismatched ones. “Yes, I suppose you must. After all, it’s a miracle you’ve lived this long.”

“I’m resilient, that’s for sure.”

“Well, be careful, brother. Luck _always_ runs out.”

Margaery is not with child. Three years she’s been married to Tommen, and three years she’s failed to deliver an heir. Tommen is young, but the only reason she keeps Margaery around anymore is for the succession. Her time is running out. Tyrion’s time is running out. That bitch Olenna Tyrell’s time is running out. She is most powerful now.

“Your Grace?”

She recognizes the voice of Petyr Baelish. His appearance back in the Red Keep is no coincident. He knows the position of Hand of the King is open now that her father’s dead. He must not have heard that it will be filled by her uncle Kevan Lannister.

“Come in, Lord Baelish.”

“Your Grace, I come with condolences for your late father and to discuss an assignment he entrusted to me.”

Her father never said anything to her about directing Baelish anywhere other than the bed of Lysa Arryn to secure the Vale. It’s common knowledge the marriage between them is successful.

“What is the nature of this assignment?”

“He asked me to use some of my connections to locate your brother, Ser Jaime.”

Her eyes narrow, and her heart races. “And his whore?”

“Yes, Lord Tywin meant to recover both Ser Jaime and Lady Sansa and instill them as Lord and Lady of Casterly Rock.”

She wonders if Tyrion knows about this, too, or if it was only the work of her father. Still, it is a betrayal. Cersei will never pardon Sansa, nor will she allow her to live her days as the Lady of her ancestral home. Cersei needs Sansa in the capital. She needs to know what it will feel like to wrap her fingers around her little dove’s neck.

When Jaime first left her, she longed for him to die miserably, too. It has been four years now since he betrayed her. She still wants him to suffer until he regrets his actions, but she does not want him to die.  

She can’t sit anymore. Staying still is too great a task. She paces the room. “And have you found them?”

“I have not been able to locate the Lady Sansa, but a man of mine located Ser Jaime with a stronghold of men in Fairmarket. He was going by the name of Lucas Howell, a marshal to Lord Mallister at Seagard.”

She laughs pleasantly. He thought he would be able to hide from her. She would have found him anywhere he went. “You’re sure Sansa was not with him?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Ser Jaime says that Lady Sansa died two years ago from a fever.”

 _A fever_. _Revenge will not be taken from me by a fever_.

“Is he on his way to King’s Landing then?”

“As we speak.”

Her father left her with a parting gift after all. “Well done, Baelish.”


	7. Jaime III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a little while on the update! A lot of the story's plot will be unfolding in the upcoming chapter, and I hope y'all will stick around to read that. I've also been working on a couple other ideas. Hope you enjoy!

The crying doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. To his surprise, nothing about his son bothers him. His little son wakes most nights with a hearty appetite, and it is Sansa who struggles to keep up with his schedule. Some nights after a feeding, instead of placing him back in the basket beside their bed, she keeps him on her chest to sleep through the night. This way, his wife wakes to their son’s steady breaths, and the babe may feed as fast as the howling cry leaves his lips.

He watches his son nurse on these nights. The boy’s little hand gently stretches across Sansa’s chest as he suckles as much milk as she provides for him. Usually, the boy’s eyes are closed, still tired himself, though his parents are awake, and Jaime can’t help but stare at the intricacies of his face.

There is a little birthmark on his forehead, one Sansa is sure will fade as he grows. If it doesn’t, she adds, one day his hair, the same golden hair of his father, will grow to cover it. Sansa says the boy is his image entirely, but when he looks into the eyes of his infant son, he only sees his wife.

For the first time, he feels the pride of a father. Perhaps this is a sign he’s finally renewed his once selfish character. Before, he had no pride in his children with Cersei. He had pride in the act of fathering their secret children, pride in taking Cersei again and again, pride in cuckolding the king, but none in the actual children. This boy, though, has his pride and his love.

Sansa’s given him the name Jason. She may have named him anything, but she chose Jason, a Lannister name that would have made his father proud. He half expected an Eddard or a Robb, a northern baby for his northern wife. That’s what Cersei did to Robert; she named them all Lannister names instead of Baratheon ones, refusing to let Robert make them theirs. Jaime reminds himself again that Sansa is not Cersei. Sansa has not made herself the sole parent of this child, as Cersei did. Indisputably, the boy entered the world through Sansa’s womb. Indisputably, the boy is hers. She’s named him Jason. She’s made the boy _his_ too.  

He can’t help but smile at their boy. Jason is always laughing at something, and he laughs the most when Jaime plays with him. He bounces the babe on his knee or hoists him gently in the air without the risk of ever dropping him. On rare days, when Jaime finishes his work early and Lady Mallister dismisses Sansa, they take him by the seashore. Sansa never wants to put him down on the sand; she’s worried the tide will come in and take her baby out to sea.

“Not this one,” Jaime says. “This is the Sunset Sea.” This is the water the sun disappears in every night. It’s warm and calm, perfect for children. This is the water he waded in as a boy while his castle loomed behind him, where he cast dreams in his head of being a great and honorable knight. This is the water his mother brought him to swim in, him and his sister, and she would have brought his brother too if she had lived. Jason will learn to swim in this water, and he will be safe.

He convinces Sansa to place him on his hands and knees in the sand. He can crawl now in his seven months and this new sandy floor excites him. He takes a fistful of it with the intention of tasting it, but Sansa intervenes before the baby can try. She hovers over him while he crawls and always keeps one eye on the sea. If she thinks the water is getting too close, she is ready to pluck him from the shore. 

He laughs at her. “Rogue waves don’t come and take children from their mothers.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I do know that. This sea is calm.”

“And have you never heard of a sudden storm?”

In the end it is Jaime who takes Jason off the ground. He wipes some of the sand off his son’s clothes and holds him firmly in the crook of right elbow. One day his son will ask about his hand, and he isn’t sure what he’ll say. It’s best not to dwell on that now, though. His son only babbles now, not one coherent word leaves his lips. With his left hand, he takes his wife’s and leads them out towards the water.

Sansa holds up the length of her dress to prevent the water from soaking it, but Jaime doesn’t care much about his clothes. He just wants to feel the water again, and when the first wave laps around his feet, he wonders if he is experiencing the memory of another man. Did Tywin Lannister ever accompany Joanna and their children on a trip to the sea? Jaime remembers his mother, but if his father ever went perhaps it was when he was too young to know. Sansa smiles as the waves draw closer, and Jaime lets go of her hand to hold Jason in the water for the shortest second. He kicks one foot, then both, splashing the water, laughing and laughing. Jason will not have to wonder. Jaime vows that Jason will always know his father was there.

Their son has brought him even closer to Sansa now as they delve into their roles as mother and father. He knows she’s always wanted a peaceful life. She’s always wanted to be a great lady wife to an honorable husband and good mother to lovely children. He tells her often how good of a mother she is. Her face beams and her eyes twinkle every time as she whispers, “ _Thank you_ , _my lord._ ”

When their son is asleep, and they are not mother and father but husband and wife, he makes sure she knows how wonderful she is at that, too. And as much as he compliments her, she thanks him. She thanks him for providing and protecting. Most of all she thanks him for Jason, their little boy with golden hair and green eyes.

“Maybe the next one will have more of you,” he mentions one night, with the weight of her head against his chest.

“We are having more?” she asks flirtatiously. She flirts so much with him now.

“I think it’s inevitable.”

She blushes. “Maybe a girl next time.”

“Yes,” he whispers, running a few fingers soothingly down the body he’s so familiar with now. “A girl who looks like you.”

Trips to Fairmarket continue as they always did, only now it seems Jason grows so much more in his absence. He takes his first steps while Jaime is away when the child is near a year. When it happens, when he sees his son lift himself from the ground of his mother’s feet and walk the distance to him, there is nothing more joyful. Battle and bedding left him keenly aware of the present. They reminded him just how alive he was. His healthy baby boy, however, shows him that he can be part of a future.

All too soon he has to leave them again, just as Jason starts saying _Father_.

“He’ll have full sentences the next time I see him,” he remarks to Sansa.

“You know he misses you while you’re away,” she tells him reassuringly, like she knows how worried he is that one day his son will simply forget him. “When we leave Lady Mallister and walk back home, he stays close to the door and waits for you to return from Seagard. I say, ‘Come away from the door, Little One, Father is on a trip’, but he does not listen. He loves you very much.”

Jaime crouches to Jason’s level and kisses the standing boy on the top of the head. “I love him.” He pulls Sansa into a hug and kisses her too. “And I love you.”

It rains all the way to Fairmarket, a cold, dreary rain that seeps into the bones. The riverlands are finally feeling the effects of autumn, and his men are discontent throughout the journey. Nonetheless, castles are dependent on their resources, and his family was dependent on the castle. They needed lumber, grain, and metals.

Their shipments await them along the Blue Fork, and he and his men take great care to load their horses and wagons for the journey back. They work through the rain to unpack the materials from the oarsmen, and Jaime isn’t sure what is sweat and what is rain dripping down his face. He is so cold, and then even colder when he hears a familiar voice.

“My good ser, what brings you here?” asks tauntingly the man with the pointed beard. Petyr Baelish sits his own horse on the dock, face shielded from the rain by a cloak. If he looks closer, he knows he’ll see the mockingbird fastening, but he does not want to show his face. He keeps his body turned away from him, and his left hand pulls covertly at his sword, should he find reason to use it. If it was just Baelish, he’d kill him in a heartbeat, but he is not alone. Behind him ride at least a dozen men in the golden cloaks of the City Watch.  

He doesn’t respond to Baelish at first, but he notices his men around him stop working. They’re curious to see what interest this member of the King’s Council could have with the marshal of Seagard.

“Headed back home with this shipment.”

“Headed home, are you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Indeed. These good men of the City Watch will be sure of it. Your sister misses you, Ser Jaime.”

Jaime meets his eyes then, swallowing hard. A whole life goes up in flames before his very eyes. No more Lucas Howell, only Jaime Lannister. Who knows what punishment Cersei has for him in King's Landing? Gods know, she's had years to think on it. As the gold cloaks dismount their horses with the intention to seize him, he unsheathes his sword and surges at the first. He is the first Jaime kills since the horrid woods witch who told him the greatest suffering would befall everyone he loved. As he wards off the second attack, he wonders if the witch was right.

He kills three gold cloaks before the rest surround him and force him to his knees. They bind his hands and feet in ropes while the men who once followed his commands look on. Their stares are sympathetic, wrathful, and confused.

Baelish calls to them from atop his horse, revealing a leather pouch from a pocket of his cloak. He shakes it once so the men may hear the clatter of coins inside.

“Who would like to tell me everything they know about this man?” he asks.

Voices clamor out, but Patrek Rivers speaks the loudest. “He told us his name was Lucas Howell, and he’s been at Seagard these past two years.”

The rain beats down on him from where he lays on the ground, his cheek pressed into the mud. He prays to every god he can think of to strike down his men, so they won’t say another word.

“Alone?” Baelish prompts. “Ser Jaime, do you think we have forgotten the girl you took to wife.”

“She’s dead,” Jaime growls. “A fever took her in Maidenpool. I left for Seagard the next day.”

“Well he’s got a red-haired little wife back there,” one of his men says. “Got a son on her too.” It is this man who receives a smile and the coveted pouch in Baelish’s hand. It is _this_ man Jaime will kill when he is free.

“Excellent,” his sister’s henchman drawls. “Good men, escort our friend to King’s Landing while I investigate this little matter at Seagard. Ser Jaime, I hope you are ready to face the King’s justice.”

“I hope you’ll be ready to face mine,” he replies before one of the gold cloaks kicks him in the jaw. The others pull him to his feet and tie him in a saddle. Once they mount their own horses, they begin riding south, bound for that dreaded capital. As they depart, his own woes—the thunderous _c_ _lop_ of hooves pounding on mud, the tightness of his restraints, the cold—do not bother him as much as the sight of Petyr Baelish riding for Seagard.


	8. Sansa III

Lord Baelish never offers to hold Jason on their journey. Sansa isn’t sure she’d agree to the exchange if he did, but the road ahead is long and her son is a heavy weight in her arms. Still, he is not so heavy as the burden she carries in her heart. Some moments of the ride she feels the urge to cry into her son’s golden locks, the curls so much like his father’s, everything so much like his father...

Her son has no father anymore, she remembers. She pities him, for she knows too well what it is to be fatherless. Lord Baelish says _he_ will act as her father now.

“I don’t look much like you,” she says.

“All can be remedied.”

“Not all.”

He doesn’t let them rest until Lord Harroway’s Town, further east from Fairmarket where her Jaime was killed. Baelish reserves a single room at the inn, insistent on keeping Sansa in his sight. _A father wishes to protect his daughter_ , he tells her. Her true father wished to protect her and they never shared a room, but what choice does she have? She cannot turn away Baelish’s protection when there is no one else left, when she cannot keep Jason safe on her own.

She clutches her boy closely to her chest that night, hearing Baelish’s cool inhales beside her. She cannot sleep with him so close.

“Did Jaime suffer?” she whispers into the darkness, knowing he is not asleep yet either.

“We should not speak of these things, sweet one,” his even voice returns.

“No, please tell me. I should like to know how my husband died.”

“I’ve told you how. A man in Fairmarket recognized him while he was organizing his party. Once he was named, a group descended on him in a frenzy, eager to collect on the queen’s reward. He defended himself to his credit, but there were too many to defeat.”

Sansa sighs. “At least they cannot collect a reward.”

“I don’t think they truly meant to kill him, only disarm him surely, but Ser Jaime provoked them to battle. He died from the bleeding. His eyes locked with mine in his final moments. I’d been passing through Fairmarket when the commotion drew my attention. In his dying breath, he told me where you were, asked me to protect you and your boy. For the love I bore your mother and the respect I have for a dead knight, I could not refuse.”

“I thank you, my lord.”

“ _Father_ ,” he corrects. “I am your father. You are Alayne Stone, and that boy of yours is Jason Stone now, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Father.”

She says it over and over in her head, like she did when she was with Jaime. They were Lucas and Jeyne Howell then. Now she’s a bastard, the bastard mother of a baseborn son. _Alayne Stone, Alayne Stone_.

“Good. Goodnight, Alayne.” He presses a kiss to her cheek. It leaves a wet stain on her skin, one she’d like to rub off the way Jeyne Howell used to rub the stains from her mistress’s dresses but she’s worried she’ll offend him. She cannot offend him when he is risking everything to protect her by escorting them to the Eyrie.

“Goodnight, Father.”

Closer to the Eyrie, a day’s ride from the party that’s been sent to escort them through the dangerous mountains, he insists on altering her hair. He comes to her with the black dye, the shade the same as his own. She’s hesitant; her hair is from her mother, the image in the mirror is all that she has left of the late Catelyn Stark. Her new father will not compromise on it, and once her hair is as dark as a raven from the roots to the ends, he gives her more.

“For the child,” he tells her.

 _No_ . _Not his golden curls. Please, those are Jaime’s_.

There was a time the yellow hair of the Lannisters incited fear in her but not since she wed Jaime. Her Jaime took her away from King’s Landing, cared for her, gave her their perfect son--no, she cannot alter their boy.

“He has his father’s hair,” she pleads tearfully.

He wipes the tears from her cheeks and tells her softly, “He needs his grandfather’s.” More tears fall silently from her eyes as she holds her boy and works the black through the gold. She feels as if she’s destroying a piece of him. Jason is smart. He sees her tears and begins crying too. Sometimes he stills calls for his father, and Lord Baelish smiles. _Grandfather_ , the lord corrects but Jason does not want _him_.  

A suspicion weighs heavily on her mind with all the other thoughts of hers. She does not dare speak it aloud, but each day the fear grows stronger and stronger. _Will Lord Baelish have another bastard grandchild soon?_

The men in Lord Baelish’s escort eye her wearily, likely wondering where this bastard daughter has been for so many years. She wonders if they see through the falsehood, but they lead her through the Bloody Gate all the same and ward off the neighboring clansmen along the way. She is so close to her Aunt Lysa, to her cousin Robin. She has not seen her own blood since her father’s execution. _Will they know who I am_ , she thinks to herself. _Will they know who my son is?_

Aunt Lysa wraps her arms around her when they meet privately, filling her ears with sweet words of how good it is to have Cat’s daughter with her where she belongs. Lysa tells her how sorry she is that Jaime Lannister forced her to marry him, how she could not imagine how awful he must have been to her.

“He was very kind to me,” Sansa says.

Lysa’s eyes harden. “He plotted to kill my husband. He nearly took the Vale away from my Sweetrobin. His family butchered yours, and you say he was _kind_ to you?” Sansa is quiet after that. Her aunt will never understand. None of them will if she tells them how deeply she loved Jaime Lannister. Suddenly her aunt’s mood shifts pleasantly. “But all’s well. You’re a widow now, free to remarry as I have married my Petyr.”

“I thank you and your husband for your hospitality. My son and I are eternally grateful.”

“As you should be,” the woman huffs. “My Petyr has risked everything to bring you here. You’re a traitor to the Crown, you know. You’re wanted for the murder of King Joffrey.”

“I didn’t kill Joffrey.”

“It’s no matter if you did. You’ll die for it if they get your hands on you. Petyr has made sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I am thankful for everything he’s done.”

The days pass, and she spends most of them as Alayne Stone. Sometimes Lysa visits her and she can be Sansa again, but she hates speaking with Lysa especially when Lord Baelish isn’t there to manipulate her. Her cousin is no better, a sickly boy spoiled to his aunt’s content, still suckling at Lysa’s breast in open court. Even Jason is weaned, just shortly after his first nameday.

She starts getting sick soon after her arrival at the Eyrie, and her new friend Mya Stone, a bastard like Alayne, begins to ask questions. It will not be long before Alayne’s father notices. In the meantime, to allay her worry, she takes Jason out into the snow surrounding the stronghold. Winter is here; she felt it just beginning in Seagard as the temperatures changed and she raised her autumn child, but here in the Vale there is no question of it. The snow seeps through her skirts, but it is too welcoming to walk away from.  

Jason wiggles in her arms, leaning his head back to feel the gentle caress of soft snow on his skin as it falls gingerly from the sky. _This is the cold in your veins, little one_ . _Your father guided you through sand and surf, now your mother leads you through the snow_. The young boy laughs in her neck when she rocks him back towards her, his face so reminiscent of Jaime’s even if his hair is dark as night. The color reminds her a bit of Jon when she stares at it too long.

All too soon the moment between mother and son ends as Lord Baelish’s footsteps crunch in the icy snow behind them. She turns to face him, the smile gone from her son’s face.

“I have good news for you.”

“Yes, Father?”

“Good news for Sansa, not Alayne.” Her eyes dart fearfully around her, searching for anyone who may have heard him, but it is just the three of them out here in the snow. “I’ve been in contact with Roose Bolton, the current Warden of the North.”

The name sparks rage. “The one who thrust the knife through my brother,” she clarifies.

“The very same,” says Petyr humorously, but Sansa does not share in his lightheartedness.“His son is unwed.”

“That has nothing to do with me.” As her stomach plummets and her breath catches, she insists to herself it has nothing to do with her.

“ _Sansa_ ,” he drawls, “the North is vulnerable. The claim of the Boltons was bought with the blood of their King, your brother. Only the union to a Stark solidifies their claim.”

“I don’t want to solidify their claim!” she shouts back, alarming Jason. After a deep breath she confesses, “I just want us to be safe.”

“You will be, sweet girl. Just picture it with me. You are the wife of Ramsay Bolton--”

“Ramsay is a bastard. Roose may still have a trueborn son.”

“Ramsay has been legitimized by King Tommen,” Baelish informs her before continuing. “When Roose dies, and you never know when a man’s time is coming, your husband will be Warden of the North. Your husband’s life may not be very long either, and when he is gone all that remains of his house is his Stark wife, the Wardeness of the North seated in Winterfell as the Starks have been seated for thousands of years.”

"Cersei will never let me have the North," she reminds him. Cersei will never let her have anything.

"You don't need to worry about Cersei. A man who can take care of Roose Bolton, Ramsay Bolton, I can take care of Cersei Lannister too. You will be the Wardeness of the North, I promise you." 

“And my son?” Sansa asks. “What about him?”

“The boy complicates things. He is the heir to Casterly Rock.”

“Is he not the heir to Winterfell too?”

“The boy cannot hold two titles. He’s the firstborn son of Jaime Lannister. That makes him the heir to Casterly Rock. If you had bore the Kingslayer a _second_ son, then he would be the heir to Winterfell. Without one, your son by Ramsay will inherit your home.”

 _A second son_. In a voice barely a whisper, she tells her protector, “I believe I am with child.”  

His face contorts in a way she’s never seen on him before, echoing the angry men she’s been a witness to all her life. “Are you certain?” he hisses.

“Quite.”

He runs a hand through his hair, wrinkling it as she’s wrinkled his plotting. “I can’t send you to a husband with a babe in your belly. We’ll have to get rid of it.”

“No! You just said a second son would inherit Winterfell.”

“And do you think Ramsay Bolton will welcome Jaime Lannister’s sons when their claims battle with his own children’s?” he asks heavily. “Jason was supposed to remain here while you remarried until it is safe for him to return to Casterly Rock.”

“It will never be safe for him to return to Casterly Rock. He’s half Stark.”

“The same can be said for a half Lannister in Winterfell.” Sansa hides a tear in her son’s raven hair. “Everyone knows you married the Kingslayer. No one knows your union produced a son. Let’s keep it that way for as long as we can. Jason will be safe here. He'll have a wet nurse to look after him, and he'll be in the care of your aunt Lysa and I. We’ll get rid of the baby. You will go North and marry Ramsay. Roose will die, Ramsay will die--Sansa, I know you want to see them draw their last breaths.”

Sansa holds her son so tightly he begins to squirm from her reach. She sets him down in the snow instead to play in it as she had when she was young. Staring longingly at him, she asks, “When Ramsay is dead, when Cersei is no longer a threat, and I am Wardeness of the North, will my son be returned to me?”

“Of course he will.” Baelish walks closer towards her, taking her icy hands in his own, trying to warm them though he does not succeed. “I will deliver him myself. When Ramsay is dead, you’ll be able to marry a third time. Think about it. A marriage not because you were forced into it, or because you must get your home back. You’ll have your home, you’ll have your son, you need only marry for love.”

He presses a kiss to her lips then, and instinctively she pulls back. It’s not far enough to prevent him from grabbing her again, from forcing her mouth open with his tongue. Jaime used to kiss her like this. It was much more pleasant then.

“I’m leaving for King’s Landing tonight. The queen summons me and I must not let her grow suspicious. When I return, we’ll depart for the North.”

What can she say really? She hates the Boltons and loves her son more than anything, but if she defies the man in front of her they both may be out of safety in the beat of a dragonfly’s wings. They’ll be forced to brave the hill tribes of the Vale, or killed by Cersei’s men as her husband was. The only thing she can say to Baelish is _yes, my lord_.  

He brings her the moon tea that night. The cup is warm in her hands, growing warmer every second it lingers in them until it is so excessively hot that she sets it down beside her mirror. She pauses to see her reflection, raising a tentative hand to her belly. It’s been two months since Jaime left her for Fairmarket. Her belly will not swell for another two, she thinks. She’ll be wed to Ramsay by the next full moon. Perhaps it’s just enough time to convince him the child is his, as Cersei once convinced Robert all those years ago. Once Ramsay is dead she’ll reveal the truth, for she cannot rid herself of Jaime’s baby.

She wishes she had a token from him, gold or jewels or any other gift she could carry with her. _He gave me nothing_ , she thinks. _No, he gave me Jason_ . She cannot take Jason with her. She _has_ to take this baby with her.

The steam from the moon tea rises as she pours it from her window.  

She will not let Jason leave her sight while Baelish is in King’s Landing. Her time with him is running out, and she’s painfully aware of it every second. He is younger than her brother Rickon was when her mother left to aid Robb. Will he even remember her when they’re reunited? The thought renews her sobs.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll look after him,” Mya tells her reassuringly. Sansa rests her head on the girl’s shoulder after another one of her fits. Baelish will arrive tomorrow to take her away from her child. “And Lord Baelish will never let any harm come to his grandson.”

Only Petyr and Lysa know who they really are. Everyone else thinks she’s Baelish’s bastard off to marry a low member of Bolton’s household. Mya Stone has been so kind to her since she’s arrived and so attentive to Jason. She reminds her of Margaery in a way.

Sansa pulls the girl into a strong embrace, positioning her mouth beside Mya’s ear. “He is not Littlefinger’s grandson, and I am not his daughter. I’m Sansa Stark, niece to Lysa Arryn, and my son is Jason Lannister.” The girl stiffens in her arms, but Sansa continues speaking. “Please, if you ever think my son is in danger, I have a brother at the wall. His name is Jon Snow. Send Jason to him if you ever suspect it. Please, promise me.”

“I promise.” The girl shudders when Sansa releases her, but she promised. Mya is different from anyone who’s ever promised her something in the past. She means her word. Jason will be safe.

Sansa watches her son now, tracing the patterns on the castle floor with the clumsy fingers of a young child. He is unburdened and innocent, without any idea why he may be in danger. Sansa was once innocent, left alone in King’s Landing without a soul to help her...until Jaime Lannister sauntered in with his sword.

As Baelish arrives to take her away, she prays to the Gods in case Jaime is with them. She prays that they'll tell him their children will be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're really starting to get to the climax of the story now! Thanks for reading!


	9. Brienne I

Jaime Lannister is no fool. He is impulsive and capable of harshness, but she knows it will be no easy thing to find him and Sansa. She’s furious when the news comes, furious with him, the Gods, even with herself for not putting an end to his plot when she found him skittering in that hallway so long ago. Everything feels so long ago. Holding Renly as he died, fleeing with Catelyn Stark, swearing herself to Lady Catelyn, returning Jaime Lannister to King’s Landing only to learn that Lady Stark’s body drifted naked down the river, only to learn Arya Stark had never been in the capital and Sansa Stark stood accused of King Joffrey’s murder. 

“You’d best be leaving too,” Jaime’s dwarf brother tells her shortly after the news takes the capital by storm. 

Resolutely, she says, “I’m not leaving without the Stark girls.”

The imp is not impressed with her; most people aren’t. Most people look away from the painful image of an ugly girl  _ playing  _ in a knight’s armor. 

“The Stark girls are not in King’s Landing, Lady Brienne. I would bet Arya Stark is as dead as her mother, and Sansa will be too if my sister finds her. I am sure you fear for her. I do too, as I fear for my brother. I have my spies, but I confess they are not much use outside of the capital. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I can offer you my squire, new armor--”

“My own armor does just fine.”

“A new sword then,” says the imp. “Freshly forged Valyrian steel.” This catches her attention, though she does not require bribery. 

“Where could you find freshly forged Valyrian steel?”

“It was a wedding present to Joffrey from my father. He had two forged from Ned Stark’s ancestral sword. It is only fitting that you should have it. Jaime has the other half. You both can use it to protect Sansa Stark.” 

Brienne is lost for words for just a moment, thinking instead of Catelyn Stark floating down the river. There was no lady better than Catelyn Stark, and no vow more sacred than the one she’d made to her. “I understand you want your brother back. Doesn’t your family want Sansa too? How can I trust that you won’t harm her?” 

“I work outside the Lannisters, I assure you. I only want Jaime. I want him unharmed. Sansa is yours to fulfill whatever vow you made to her mother. My father and sister will never know I sent you to find them.”

She knows she should ask for more. She knows she should be skeptical. People do not have the honor that she does. Still she agrees. She takes the sword, the squire, the golden coins, even a glowing destrier, but they do not help her find Jaime and Sansa. The squire, Podrick Payne, accompanies her to question the septon who married them, but he is long dead when they arrive outside Duskendale. 

“Do you think it was the queen?” Podrick asks her.

“I’m certain.”

“Where do we go now?” The squire irritates her when he asks this, mainly because she does not know either. She thinks of the Riverlands, the lands of Sansa’s mother, but they no longer belong to the Tullys. She knows Jaime would not have taken her west into his homeland. Lannister land would be too dangerous. She knows they couldn’t have gone to the Vale, for Lysa Arryn hates nothing more than Lannisters. 

“We go north,” she says. 

“The North belongs to the Boltons now.”

Brienne smiles. She is not from the rich northern lands, but neither was Lady Catelyn, and in her love for her lady, she has grown pride in them. “The North remembers.” 

She plans to travel through the woods, off of the Kingsroad, as she had when she traveled with Ser Jaime to King’s Landing. It becomes painfully clear after a few months that this is not the best option. Food in the woods is scarce now as the air grows colder, and the frequent rains make it difficult to track exactly where they are and even more difficult to travel. They return to Duskendale and decide instead to sail. No ships sail for White Harbor, but they are able to acquire passage on a boat headed for Crackclaw Point on the Bay of Crabs. She thinks it will be easier to get a ship to White Harbor out of the Bay of Crabs. Already, it’s been months, and she worries it will take more months to find them. 

She knows she can’t outright ask for Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark; the bounties on their heads are far greater than any others in the seven kingdoms. She knows she isn’t the only one looking for them either. The thought keeps her awake at night. She doesn’t know how many people are after them, but she’s sure she’s the only one who wants to keep her safe. What does she have to recommend herself to them anyways? King Renly’s dead, Lady Catelyn’s dead--she swore herself to both of them. She spends the nights doubting herself, but her days are driven by her duty. Death does not release her from her vows. 

“Do you believe what the people were saying back in King’s Landing, that Ser Jaime fell in love with Lady Sansa?”

“Absolutely not,” replies Brienne. She knows Jaime well enough from their travels to King’s Landing to know he loved another. 

“Why do you think he married her then? Why would they draw that attention to themselves? They had to know the news would spread.”

“I don’t know, Podrick. I can’t speak for them. I do know stress can do strange things to a person.”

“He killed her guards. He killed red cloaks to free her.”

“He’s killed a lot of people, and he swore a vow to Lady Catelyn just as I did.” 

“No one expected him to stay true to it.”

Brienne sighed. “That may be why he did.”   

They can’t help but hear the songs--the epics documenting the great love of Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark. Each time she hears them, she thinks of how flawed the histories must be, how they will always be flawed. Generations later, if there are even still Starks and Lannisters and Baratheons, will they know the truth of their family’s atrocities?

When they get to Crackclaw Point, they learn there aren’t any ships headed for White Harbor. 

“How much for a crew?” she asks instead. 

“More than you have, that’s for sure. Nothing less than a fortune will get you to White Harbor. Winter’s just beginning, and already the Bite’s frozen. You’ll have to take the Kingsroad.”

“Travel on the Kingsroad is too dangerous these days,” Brienne says. 

“Not so much now,” the man assures her. “Can’t be a War of Five Kings if those kings are dead now.” Not all of them are dead, though, Brienne wants to say. She thinks of Stannis Baratheon and the vow she swore to kill him for her fallen Renly, and she thinks of the kings that arise when their predecessors fall. Wars don’t end so easily. Even Robert’s Rebellion isn’t finished; she hears the whispers of the Dragon Queen in the East. 

Instead, she says nothing. Instead, she and Podrick return to the little camp they’ve made. Mostly she made it; Podrick isn’t too helpful with these things. He wants to abandon the journey to White Harbor, but she won’t hear it. 

“Do you really think Ser Jaime took Lady Sansa to the North?”

Brienne holds her head in her hands. Her helm sits on the floor beside her as she experiences the onset of a headache. She gets them frequently now. “He swore to take her home.”

“They left quickly. Lord Tyrion doubts Ser Jaime took much gold with him. I don’t think they could have made it as far as you think, especially without Northern allies.”

She’s had enough of Lord Tyrion’s squire, this unseasoned boy who knows nothing of horses or armor or combat. All he can do is pour wine. Brienne wishes she had only taken the destrier, the sword, and the gold. If she could do it again, she’d leave the squire with Lord Tyrion. “Do you know how many Northern houses would rally to Sansa Stark?”

“But Sansa  _ Lannister _ ?” Podrick asks. “They’ve bound themselves to each other with this marriage. That’s why I can’t understand it. She’s made herself an enemy to her brother’s men, and he’s made himself an enemy to the Lannisters.”

She knows Podrick has a point, but she refuses to tell him. Instead, she says, “We need to find Arya too.”

“Arya’s dead.”

“By whose decree? Have you seen her bones, Podrick?”

“ _ No one  _ has seen her since King Robert’s death. Everyone believes she’s dead.”

“That’s exactly what I’d want people to believe, too, if I were her.” Even if Jaime and Sansa aren’t in the North, she thinks it’s highly possible that Arya is. For this reason, she will not abandon White Harbor. They travel west to Maidenpool in what will most likely be another fruitless endeavor in ascertaining a ship.

She knows the Bite could not have thawed in the time it takes to arrive in Maidenpool, but still she asks the fisherfolk for a ship to White Harbor. She asks to pay for her own crew, but they all laugh at her. One of the men by the pool, however, garners her attention just as she’s about to leave. He is a perfectly ordinary man, just the kind one would expect to fish. He’s tanned and wrinkled, gray hair grown out past his shoulders, clothes dirtied, but his sword…

“Where did you get that sword?” she asks immediately, grabbing for it, the mirror of her own. The man swats her hand away, but still she disarms him and holds the steel carefully in her hands.  _ Could it really be?  _ “Where did you get it?” she asks again, louder and desperately.

“I found it. I rent an apartment by the shore for me and my wife and our children. It was in the closet, the only thing there. Nice thing, isn’t it? Pure luck that I found it.”

“I’ll be taking it,” Brienne tells him. 

“What? You can’t do that.”

“I know the owner. I’m returning it to him. Now show me the apartment you live in.” She draws a gold coin from her coin purse and holds it out for him. “For the sword.” She hands him another. “For the apartment.” The man takes her immediately. 

“Lots of fisherfolk live here with their families,” he tells her. “Who are you looking for anyways?”

“My brother,” she lies. “Missing since the war.”

“Probably dead.”

“I know that. This is your apartment?”

“This is the one.”

She goes to the neighbors, asking each and every one of them if they know who lived in the apartment before the man and his family. Woolen, she learns is their surname. Who lived here before the Woolens? Most who answer the door have no answer to her question. 

“Don’t know. I keep to myself.”

“Another fisherman most likely.”

“A man and his wife,” one woman says. Her face is painted heavily, the way many whores paint their faces. “Wife was sick. I think she died, and then the husband left not long after.”

“What did they look like?” Brienne asks. 

The whore smiles. “What’s it worth?” 

Brienne refuses to leave Maidenpool without any provisions, so she offers silver now instead of gold. The whore takes it. “I only ever saw the husband. Most handsome man I ever saw. Golden hair and the most beautiful green eyes, missing a hand though. The Gods couldn’t make a man without flaws.”

Brienne’s heart quickens. She can’t wait to tell Podrick. Finally she feels like their quest is not impossible. Still she remembers that this woman thinks Sansa is already dead. She can’t be dead. Brienne has an oath to keep. “Did he ever give you a name?”

“No.”

“Do you know the names of the man and woman who lived in that apartment before the Woolens?” she asks the neighbors. 

Door after door, no one knows. Then in a voice barely above a whisper, “Lucas Howell. I’ll remember his name for the rest of my life. He came and nearly killed my husband one night. The Gods answered my prayers, sending him to me like that. His wife was young, with long red hair. I don’t know her name.”

_ Lucas Howell.  _ She says the name again and again in her mind.  _ We’re closer now _ . 

“We have them, Podrick.”

“But we don’t, Lady Brienne,” he says. 

Jaime’s sword lays across her legs. She slides her finger across the sharp steel, imagining Ned Stark’s original sword untouched. “But we’re so much closer.” 

Her optimism proves to be misplaced, however. Months pass. They travel North up the Kingsroad, and no one’s heard of Lucas Howell, and no one has any information about Arya Stark. Months turn into years, and each day she grows more frustrated. Each day she expects Podrick to abandon her, but he remains steadfastly by her side. He doesn’t bother her anymore. So often she thinks about abandoning it all herself. So often she thinks Sansa and Arya are as dead as the rest of the Starks, and if Jaime is even still alive, she should kill him herself. 

They’re at an inn near Moat Cailin when they overhear two men from the table behind them. “Did you hear they got the Kingslayer?”

“They killed him?”

“Got him alive. Taking him back to King’s Landing. The Queen wants a word with him apparently.”

The other man laughs. “Not too happy about being replaced with Ned Stark’s daughter, is she? Did they find her?”

“Didn’t hear about her, just the Kingslayer.”

Brienne finds her same determination in Podrick's the set of Podrick's jaw and the gleam in his eyes. She knows they’ve made up their minds without saying a word to each other. They need answers, and Jaime has them. They have to go to King’s Landing.


	10. Jaime IV

He feels the Starks around him, Ned and Sansa. They were kept here once. Lots of criminals were kept here in the Black Cells, but it’s those two he thinks of the most, Sansa especially. He remembers how ragged she looked when he visited her, how awful she sounded. She may have died in these cells if the trial had been father away, had he not rescued her.  _ He  _ may die in these cells.

“Brother, I always thought this was going to go the other way around,” Tyrion says. 

“Though I have missed you, I’m not much in the mood for your humor.” The raspiness of his voice is foreign to his ears. Tyrion hands him a gourd of what he thinks is water. One smell confirms it’s really wine. He drinks it all, he’s so thirsty. 

Tyrion shakes his head at him. “Our sweet sister is not pleased.”

“I didn’t think she would be. Will she be visiting me soon?” Jaime wonders. How will he react if she does? He hasn’t seen her in years, not since Joffrey’s death. When Baelish’s men marched him back to the capital, he was taken immediately to the Black Cells. Tyrion is the first one to see him.  

“I’d bet on it. She could never keep away from you long.”

Bile rises in Jaime’s throat from the shame. He is a different person now. He wants his brother to know that. He doesn’t waste his breath with the declaration, though. Tyrion won’t believe him. It’s like when he first returned to King’s Landing without a hand, an escaped prisoner of war. Tyrion and Cersei expected the same Jaime who left. Still, they expect him. Too much has happened. Sansa and Jason appear unbidden in his mind once again. The shame is gone, and all that’s left is rage.  

“Brother, you have to get me out of here,” he says.

“I’m working on it. As I mentioned before, Cersei won’t have it at the moment. She thinks you’ve traded sides.”

“What sides? The war is over. Sansa’s family is dead. Our father intended to marry her to a Lannister anyways, I know he did. Why hasn’t Father ordered Cersei to release me?”

“He’s dead, Jaime. The maesters say an attack of the heart. I suspect foul play. He was pushing for Cersei to remarry, and she wouldn’t have it. My condolences to you, by the way. I hear you’re a widower.” His brother mentions this halfheartedly, as if his separation from Sansa is no small woe.

“Do not mock me, brother,” he snarls, the caged lion once more. 

“Forgive me, I tend to poke fun at things I do not understand.”

“Understand this:  never speak so lightly of her again.” He wishes he had more wine. He wishes he had something to help him forget he is locked up in the droll Black Cells beneath the Red Keep, without any means to protect the two that mean the most to him. 

Before Tyrion says anything else, they hear footsteps echo through the cold, dark cells. From the walk, Jaime can tell it is no guard come to join them. Tyrion knows it too, if the subtle stiffening of his shoulders is any indication. Jaime does nothing, however. What dignity does he have to maintain for the sister who’s imprisoned him?

Cersei’s lips are tightened into one fine line across her face, hands clasped within each other. Her neck is perfectly straight, while her head balances the golden crown above it. She is still the very appearance of a queen, though the emeralds in her eyes no longer shine as they once did. Her hair is still golden, face pretty despite the signs of age, but all love for her is gone.

“Leave us, Tyrion,” she says.

“I think it would be best for him to stay. The three Lannister children reunited at last.”

“You are no true Lannister,” Cersei tells him. “You killed our own men to free that little traitor. You freed the girl who killed the king you were sworn to protect!”

“You would hear no reason. She would never have lived through that trial, even though she was innocent.”

“And she is dead now. I’ve just met with Lord Baelish, and he confirms she died of sickness. The trial would have been more just.”

He cannot react to the news in front of her. If Baelish claims this, it means he has Sansa and Jason. If by some mercy he doesn’t, it means he’s looking for them and doesn’t want his queen to know. He feels weak once again while the witch’s words echo in his ears:   _ The greatest suffering will befall everyone you love.  _ He chokes down the fear.  Lions do not bow. 

“Your trial will be just as well. Perfectly fitting for the man who brought his king’s murderer into his bed!” she shouts. The Queen disappears then and becomes only an angry woman. She digs her fingers around the bars of his cell as the fury in her eyes catches the torchlight. He wants to laugh at her. He has no desire to quell her anger, nor does her power frighten him. He cares nothing for his own fate when he knows Sansa and Jason are in immediate danger. 

“I didn’t just bring her into my bed, sweet sister,” he says. A smile forms on his lips, though his eyes mirror the same fury in his sister’s. Tyrion is the only one still calm between the three.  _ Hasn’t it always been that way?  _ Their younger brother watches them now in a battle to destroy the last fragments of the other's sanity. It will be some consolation if he can drive Cersei to madness first. “According to the septon, I sealed my soul to hers, binding us for eternity.”

His words have the effect he wanted. She looks like she’s been slapped. “You will  _ die _ for this.”

“Tell me, does King Tommen share your view? I believe he’s the one who gets to decide if my head stays attached to my neck.”

“Our nephew would rather not have you executed,” Tyrion admits, and Cersei glares at him for saying so. 

Then she stares straight into his eyes and shakes her head. “I used to think you weren’t like other men. You truly believed that one man could love one woman all of his days.”

Her vulnerability will finish her. “I still do believe that. I just spent too many years on the wrong woman.” He sees the wetness in her eyes for just a second, but she composes herself quickly enough that he could have believed it was a trick of the light. 

“Three children we share.”

“Keep your voice down. A guard will hear you,” Tyrion counsels. Cersei is too provoked to adhere to reason now.

“I bore you three children!”

“And not once did I feel the way I did when I held the one Sansa bore me.” What harm can it do now, to admit he has a son? Cersei will never find him, not while Baelish has him. It’s another way to hurt his sister, while he hopes now his brother will understand just how much he’s truly lost. 

“A son?” Tyrion squawks. “A trueborn son? Does he live?”

Cersei wants the answer to the question as eagerly as Tyrion does. Jaime does not know whether it is cleverer to answer affirmatively or negatively; he doesn’t know which is true himself, he realizes gravely. 

“You know something, I don’t recall. Everything’s a bit hazy now.”

“ _ Answer  _ him,” Cersei commands. 

“I did. I don’t recall.”  

“I’ll have you tortured. I promise you I will. No man keeps secrets from Ser Gregor.”

Jaime laughs. “Go on then.” Doesn’t he deserve the pain? Doesn’t he deserve it all? A man with sins as great as his--how could he expect a sword hand to pay for them all?  _ Take the whole arm _ , he wants to implore her.  _ Take the arm for the wicked incest which spurred the realm to war _ . Sometimes he thinks he can smell the fleet of Stannis Baratheon burning in a haze of wildfire, though he was never there. Maybe it’s the smell of all the men King Aerys burned, maybe he’s hearing the screams of Rickard Stark instead of Stannis’s sailors burning. He imagines the city of King’s Landing preparing for everything all over again, another invasion, another episode of rape and plunder, only this time in the name of the flaming stag instead of the lion.

So take the arm, he decides. Take a leg for the mad king he sired. Take the other for the princess. Princess Myrcella, Princess Elia--both innocent, both dead. Take the left arm for King Tommen, his last product of incest, and hope the arm is enough of an offering to keep his son’s reign good. Have Ser Gregor gut him for all the rest. Feed the entrails to the pigs for what he’s done to the innocent.  _ What does that leave me with? A heart _ . He knows what he wants done with his heart. He wants it ripped out of his chest for Sansa and Jason. 

Once, he convinced himself Cersei was his. She was his only love, his only partner in this life. He wasn’t hers, and once he discovered the truth of that, by nature she couldn’t be his. Instead, he realized he was as much her dog as the Hound had been Joffrey’s. He killed whoever she told him to. He would have killed anyone for Sansa.  _ Any mark on you will be repaid ten times over _ , he’d promised, but she had never asked him to act on it. Cersei always asked so much of him, and he did as he was bid.  _ Give me a child _ . He obeyed.  _ Don’t look at him too much. People will start to wonder _ . He obeyed.  _ Go. Defend our family from the Starks.   _

He never believed in magic, rarely buying into the power of the Gods. But he thinks Sansa came directly from them. The Gods of her mother created her in beauty and goodness, compassion and love. When one receives gifts from the Gods, he offers sacrifices to show his appreciation. So give them his heart for the time he had with her, for the gift of their beautiful Godly-begotten son. See if the Gods will take his head too as punishment for his inability to protect their gifts. 

“You will regret this,” vows Cersei, interrupting his thoughts. 

“As will you, Sister,” Tyrion pleads. “We three have all done each other wrong in the past. But we move on. We need each other.” Cersei’s expression does not change, though. “Think of your son, the King!” Finally, a quirk of an eyebrow belies her compliance to hear his counsel. “He needs the people on his side. The people will hold him responsible if his regent executes Jaime. They love Jaime.” 

“Do they?” Jaime asks through a dry chuckle which develops into a harsh cough. “They love the  _ Kingslayer  _ now?”

“They love a good story. You and Sansa made a fine one.” 

They love him? Love for Sansa has redeemed him to the masses? Perhaps she’s not from the Seven after all. Years ago, when she was still so young, the witch had said there was magic in her blood. Perhaps she was carved in totality by her father’s Gods, and it was they who painted her hair in the cascading color of weirwood leaves and gave her the sweet voice of a songbird, singing words as warm as honey. 

“We tell the people what they want!” Cersei insists. “We alone.” 

“Too many kings have been killed for you to believe that,” their brother reminds her. “Spare Jaime. We are many things, but we are not kinslayers.” 

_ Yes, we are _ . Is that the slightest admission of guilt he sees in his sister’s eyes, the barest hint of regret for what she’s done to their father? Jaime deserves Cersei in all her wickedness, but he craves Sansa for the opposite. 

“I will take this to the other members of the small council.”

“Good.”

“It may be they agree with me,” she says with a swish of her heavy skirts--it’s getting colder every day--and disappears into the corridor she entered from. They hear her delicate steps vibrate through his cool, metal cage until she is gone from the Black Cells entirely. 

“Hardly anyone agrees with her these days,” Tyrion mentions. “Not since we lost Father’s voice of reason.”

“If Father could see us now…” he laughs. 

Tyrion smiles sadly. “He wanted to pardon you, you know. You and Sansa.”

The news stings. He could have come home. He could have raised his son at Casterly Rock. But, in truth, he couldn’t have. “She never would have been safe.” 

His brother nods sympathetically. “Your son, what did you call him?”

“Jason,” he replies fondly, thinking of his golden hair and clumsy first steps, his green eyes and contagious laugh, his birthmark and the way his son would reach for the comfort of his arms. 

“For our grandfather?” 

“Sansa’s idea.”

“She was sweet,” Tyrion surprises him by saying. “There were days I wished Ned Stark had never brought her to King’s Landing.” 

“I’m sure the man wished the same before his end.” 

“You know, I pride myself on being particularly clever, and I have to say your feelings for Sansa eluded me.” His brother isn’t mocking him anymore. Jaime never mocked him for Tysha; he deserves the same. 

“I didn’t love her at first. I was angry. Angry with Cersei, angry with Catelyn Stark, angry that Sansa would die for something we all knew she didn’t do. You can’t do anything to the Queen, and you can’t raise the dead, so I did what I could. I took her and got her out of the city before anyone could know she was gone. She couldn’t bear the shame of traveling with a man unwed, so we wed. She preserved her honor, and I provoked our sister. We wed, we kept each other focused, and we kept each other alive. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I loved her.” Oh, it felt so good to say it out loud.  _ I loved her. I loved her, and she was taken from me.  _

“My condolences in earnest.”

“Thank you, Brother.” 

Tyrion stands. “I will get you out of here.” 

“Please. They need me.” 

His brother leans forward as close as he can. “Jaime, tell me the truth of it. Do they live?” 

He nods before whispering, “You have a snake in your council, Brother.” 

“Of course I do. We may as well call the small council a nest. Tell me who you mean.”

“You can’t touch him without putting them at risk of Cersei.” 

“I’ll handle her. Tell me, is it Littlefinger?” Jaime’s eyes widen. His brother has always been able to see things clearer than the rest of them. He nods again. “I’ll get you out of here. I’ll handle our friend. You will see them again.” 

A desperate man eats promises as a starving man eats bread, and he clings to his brother’s words. His brother must leave him now, but he leaves him with a better parting than he expected, smiling and whistling a familiar tune. He’d rolled his eyes when he first heard the song, thinking how stupid people can be, while Sansa just blushed. He’d gazed into her eyes playfully, and said, “Hmm. I guess they are a bright blue. Maybe not the brightest.” She’d only blushed more. He can’t even remember all the words now, try as he might, just the one verse he’d teased Sansa about. He wishes he remembered all the words. 

That night he dreams of Sansa in Winterfell, though it is not the Winterfell she described to him when they had whispered to each other across their bed. This Winterfell is destroyed, and a banner he can’t make out marks the walls. Still, Sansa is there, walking across the snowy yard. She walks slowly, and her face is expressionless. He calls to her, but she does not turn to him. He can’t move towards her for some reason, but he keeps trying, keeps calling to her. He hears the cries of three children, the howls of two wolves, the stampeding of horses, the footfall of soldiers, the  _ swish  _ of arrows flying through the sky… through it all, Sansa keeps walking steadily until she is directly in front of the banner he can’t yet make out. One movement, and she rips the cloth from the walls and lets it fall to the snow. It becomes tattered and wet, more unrecognizable than it had been in the first place. 

Then the sounds stop. All of them at once. The children, the wolves, the horses, the soldiers, the arrows, even he stops calling to her. A second later he hears her humming. It’s the song he couldn’t remember earlier, but when he hears the tune on her lips, the words flood back to him. 

 

_ Of golden hair and golden hands, _

_ We all were quite so sure _

_ That no amount could sate the beast. _

_ The lions would want more. _

 

_ Then the heir to the rock heard of the maid _

_ who slew his golden king.  _

_ He marched down to her iron cell, _

_ to send her off to sleep. _

 

_ Then the heir to the rock spied the maid _

_ With hair of fiery red. _

_ Wet tears fell down ivory cheeks, _

_ mourning all her dead. _

 

_ “Pardon me, my lord,” she cried. _

_ “I did no evil thing. _

_ “Please don’t make me sleep tonight. _

_ I did not kill the king.”  _

 

_ There was no waiver to her voice. _

_ He knew her to be true.  _

_ Long he looked into her eyes, _

_ the brightest shade of blue. _

 

_ All thoughts of gold flew from this mind _

_ The moment his eyes laid _

_ Upon the fairest face of Sansa Stark _

_ And from her never strayed. _

 

_ Then the heir to the rock left his pride, _

_ for the moment his eyes laid _

_ upon the fairest face of Sansa Stark, _

_ he knew they'd never stray.  _

 

_ One war already fought and won _

_ How many will ensue _

_ Before men learn to love a Stark _

_ Is the last thing that they do? _

 

Sansa turns to him then. She smiles, and they sing the song together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! There's only a handful or so left! Thank you so much for reading! As always, I love to know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter! This is the first Jaimsa fic I've ever written!


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